So, I don't know why, but I keep going back to read Ann Coulter's "columns". I guess it's akin to driving by car wrecks. It's amazing to see a mind with so much potential in the middle of a full-blown crash of overwrought logical fallacies.
In case you don't know, a logical fallacy is defined as an error in reasoning, sometimes intentional to make it easier to refute an opponents argument, and sometimes unintentional. Everytime I read an Ann Coulter essay I feel like I need a pad and paper to keep track of all of the crap that she's spewing. The other day I decided to just put it here instead.
By the way, I'm referencing the column for 8.25.2004.
Alright, we hit the 4th paragraph and we've already got 5 fallacies, all of them ad hominem attacks.
The next paragraph sees her employ exaggeration when she says that Chris Matthews was excoriating people "for breathing oxygen", which we know is not true. Then she uses an appeal to authority to try and undercut any point that Matthews may have tried to make by saying that Hardball only has 6 viewers left, and then finishes with another ad hominem attack. It's interesting in all of this to note that she calls Chris Matthews on one of his own logical fallacies (I'll believe that he committed this one, many people are), called 'begging the question'.
Total count so far: 8
Let's press on...The next couple of paragraphs she says that Matthews interviewed himself (ad hominem), which cuts against what's normal (popularity fallacy). She then attacks another person (another ad hominem) and then attacks him again. Ann Coulter proceeds to show us a bunch of places from the transcript where someone wasn't allowed to speak, or was interrupted, without showing us the context of the interuption. That's fallacy of exclusion.
That's another 5 for a total of 13.
She then rounds out with a few more ad hominen attacks, giving us about 16 total logical fallacies in an article about a page and a half long.
16 fallacies. That's a lot of bullshit for her to peddle as the truth. And it's not even feel-good happy-go-lucky bullshit. This is down in the trenches bare knuckle boxing bullshit, the kind that's written just to make the partisans feel good and to rankle the opponents. I was going to ask why do so many people listen to her, but I think I know why.
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