Have Tea Partiers Stopped Beating Their Wives?

Have Tea Partiers Stopped Beating Their Wives?

A classic, deceptive rhetorical device involves asking if your opponent has stopped beating his wife yet. The question presupposes that he has beaten his wife in the past and thereby a yes or no response condemns the opponent as a wife-beater.

Nice trick.

Vice President Joe Biden used a variation on the wife-beating trick in his ostensible defense of the Tea Party movement as not a “racist organization” a cute, deceptive rhetorical device. It presupposes that at least some people believe the Tea Party is in fact a racist organization and for those who hadn’t heard that slander, it serves to get it out on the public table.

As he said on “This Week,” with typically-jumbled syntax, ”The truth is that at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks have expressed racist views. We saw that on television . . . There are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things . . . that have expressed really unfortunate comments:” http://tiny.cc/8h7ws

He didn’t explain and wasn’t asked what he saw on TV.

Nor did he criticize outright racism as it exists in the administration’s own Justice Department . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1793)