Marc Thiessen: Shameless Sophist

Let me begin by saying that 'shameless sophist' is the very nicest and most charitable way of describing Thiessen that I could think of. What he really ought to be called is about twenty notches down the civility scale from that.

Here's the latest.

Unfortunately, Michael Ware didn't do a very good job of responding to Thiessen, who could (and should) have been absolutely humiliated.

IMO the most despicable of all the fallacious talking points of the Bush era was the Died In Vain fallacy, which was extremely popular with Bushies for a year or so. It was used as a generic response to anyone who pointed out that the war was unjustified. Went like this:

A: The Iraq war was unjustified.

B: So you think all those brave Americans who have died there have died in vain!

Now, even many liberals failed to recognize the rhetorical power of this bit of sophistry, brushing it off as inconsequential--but it's fiendishly clever (fiendish and clever in approximately equal measures). I wrote on this extensively when the fallacy was in vogue, so I won't do so again now. But Thiessen's sophistry is in the same general ballpark. Both tricks turn on the fact that administrations create policies that must be implemented by soldiers. In both cases, the GOP sophists endeavor to convince the audience that by criticizing the policy, critics were denigrating the troops, spooks, and whatnot who implemented that policy. It acts as a kind of suppressed premise in the argument that one should not say anything negative about the troops (even if it entails no error on their part). So what we get is a generic defense-of-Bush argument that looks roughly like this:

(1) Bush implemented policy X, which was implemented by the troops.

(2) If you criticize policy X, then you are denigrating/criticizing the troops.

(3) Anyone who denigrates/criticises the troops is wrong/loses the argument/is a bad person.
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(4) Any critic of any such policy is wrong/loses the argument/is a bad person.

So, you see, it was permissible to send the troops into an unjustified war--but is not permissible to point out that that war was unjustified. To actually order American troops to unnecessary deaths is quit alright; but to point out that this is what has been done is not alright. To order our troops and spooks to do something immoral, or to mislead them into doing so with legal trickery is perfectly fine; to (truly) say that this is what was done is not.

Marc Thiessen is either a bad person or a stupid person or some bit of both. Admitting that America--actually, the Bush administration--made errors does entail that some of our troops carried out erroneous policies. But it is evil and despicable to pretend what any sane person can see is false--that this should preclude us from acknowledging the error.

The bad people here are not those who are pointing out our errors. Those are not the people who are disrespecting the troops. The people who are disrespecting the troops are those like Thiessen who use patently sophistical arguments to pretend that any criticism of the Bush/Cheney administration is criticism of the troops. It is people like Thiessen who use the troops as stalking-horses and pawns in their despicable and self-interested political games. Those who point out the errors generally have, as one of their main goals, lowering the likelihood that similar mistakes will be made again in the future. Those who use Thiessen's sophistical responses have little or no genuine concern for the troops--their primary goals are to defend Bush and Cheney or to undermine Obama. Their goals are purely political.

If there's a logical hell, Thiessen and his ilk are as good as there.