On my way home tonight I heard Randi Rhodes of Air America. In her very loud rant, she kept repeating two lines for the duration of my 10 minute drive.
First, she was responding to charges that the Democrats under Pelosi and Obama have grown the size of government. She listed the dozens of government departments that were created under the 8 years of Bush, totaling hundreds! I agree Randi, Bush shouldn’t have grown government so much. And conservatives said so at the time.
How to fail: Take the 2nd grade “I am rubber you are glue” approach.
When someone says your party is growing government bigger, respond with, “Your party grew the government bigger!” Randi’s response didn’t deal with whether a bigger government is good idea or a bad idea. Presumably Randi is in favor of the bigger government that her party is bringing, so her response is meaningless. All someone has to say is, “I don’t like that Bush grew the government by so much either,” and her argument is totally deflated.
Here’s how the argument could have gone:
Obama is growing the government! That’s bad!
Bush grew the government by huge amounts!
Right. That’s one of the ways Bush wasn’t very conservative. I agree that Bush expanding the government so much was a problem. I said so at the time.
Then the conversation could have gone somewhere productive, like talking about what the government should or should not do.
I think this usually happens when someone knows the negative claim against their position is true. Instead of explaining or justifying where they’re coming from, they simply deflect and say, “You too, you too!”
Another example I heard recently was in response to concerns that Obama could use the oil spill for a government power-grabs, to enforce huge new government programs. The response?
What – like Bush’s illegal wars against countries not even related to 9/11?
The original concern is still valid, but what’s worse is the double-standard. It’s good when Obama takes sweeping action in response to a crisis, but bad if Bush does it? How can there be any logic with such inconsistency? To respond by insulting when Bush did it is to say that it is a bad idea. If a power-grab during a crisis is a bad idea, it’s a bad idea.
Don’t say something is a bad idea when one person does it, but when another person does it, it’s pure righteousness.
