Let mad dogs lie

OK it’s Sunday again and time for your Sunday non-sequitur, brought to you by Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Right Wing Rabble Rousers everywhere.

Last Friday night, Governor Mike used an argument I’ve been hearing and reading recently, which suggests that it was made in some Republican mud-pie manufactory. You know how I love to pick apart fallacies and the Republicans who tell them, but this is so stupid it gives me little pleasure to dismember. What the Governor was talking about on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show was the infamous call for assassination from Pat Robertson. Looking right at the camera, he attempted to deflect the criticism by saying that George Stephanopolous had once suggested an assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein and therefore one shouldn't complain about Robertson.

Yes, all the other kids were smoking in the boy's room, so it wasn't so bad if I did. Yes, I know, George Stephanopolous hasn’t been making a living being holier than everyone and professing to be speaking for Jesus. Yes, I know we are not at war with Venezuela. Yes, I know that the US attempted to kill Saddam many times and with civilian casualties. It just doesn't matter what anyone on our side does, Clinton was worse and Clinton is to blame.

The appeal to common practice fallacy is further compounded by a false equivalence: that of a government official and a religious leader supposedly devoted to accepting the counsel of Jesus and the laws of God.

As I said, I take no pleasure in this because they have already won; because the truth doesn’t matter and nothing needs to make sense.