Dole vs. Clinton
In 1996, senator and military veteran Bob Dole ran against Bill Clinton, who fled the country to avoid the draft at the time Dole was serving. We elected Clinton after being told that military experience was irrelevant, and it wasn’t a big deal that Clinton dodged the draft.
Eight years later, veteran John Kerry was running against George W. Bush, who served in the reserves and never saw combat. The same people who discounted military experience and defended draft-dodging in ’96 were now saying military experience mattered, and that Bush serving in the military wasn’t good enough.
This brings us to How to Fail at Arguing #3:
Reverse positions as it suits you.
It’s a quick way to lose credibility and make everything you say irrelevant.
W. Bush vs. Obama
Do you remember this picture of Bush and McCain with a cake during the Katrina days? How dare he eat a piece of cake during a disaster?! What about Bush playing golf, as villainized by Michael Moore in a documentary as shown in this clip (it seems an insult to the word “documentary,” but that’s what it was called):
And now, only two years later, Obama is excused for spending all sorts of time throwing parties and playing golf – in fact more golf already than Bush played during his 8 years in office – all while saying he “wont’ rest” until the Gulf of Mexico disaster is resolved.
If you criticized Bush for golfing but you don’t criticize Obama for the same thing, you fail at arguing.
