So who is right?

We took a look at a couple speeches and interviews today and discussed the rhetoric in them, particularly looking closely at the idea of logical fallacies.  The interview with William Black was brought to my attention thanks to Mr. Walsh McGuire, financial genius, and Obama's speech was brought to my attention perhaps thanks to the relative ease with which you can pick out logical fallacies.  It also served as somewhat of the opposite viewpoint to Mr. Black's.  So we can start with Obama's:



(my first question isn't important, but what does the bit about "if the neighbor sleep in his bed."  Of course it looks like a mistake, but is there some kind of reference there I am missing?)

I have quite a few other questions, but the places we looked at closely were the first major logical fallacy that people are angry and frustrated because "Wall Street's mistakes have put their tax dollars at risk."  Of course those tax dollars are only at risk because Wall Street is holding the President and all of his advisers hostage so that they will funnel money through various institutions and measures to those very same banks.  They don't have to, but the constantly repeated line is that, if they don't, the world will collapse.  So I would just like it if the speech writers in the future would make sure to connect the dots for us rather than leaving out the rather important and somewhat disgusting middle few dots for us to have to find on our own.  Clearly, that takes too much work!

Mr. Black's interview is not a direct response to Mr. Obama's speech, or anyone else's for that matter, though you can look at his testimony to the congressional panel here.  Note that even the folks there don't want to hear it as they start banging the gavel long before he is done roasting everyone you've ever heard of. I have to admit, perhaps the only reason I like his answer so much is that at no time does he say anything along the lines of "we didn't see this coming" or "I don't know how this happened" or even "we are really, really sorry for all this" all the while sitting on VERY fat wallet.

It should of course be noted that the Real News Network's interviewer at this point is obviously holding hands with Mr. Black.  We contrasted this technique of interviewing with one of the more famous BBC interviews of all time in which the interviewer actually asks the same question ten times or more in a vain attempt to get the interviewee to answer it, check it out here.  (It is worth eight minutes of your time to get the whole set up.)

But on to his interview (I've only included the first part, feel free to watch the rest on your own)



So there are other rhetorical issues with Mr. Black's interview, and we didn't get a chance to work on them today but hopefully will in the future because it is only fair that we pick on everyone, not just the people we think are really good looking or those that don't have incredible facial hair.

Obviously I'd love to hear how people feel about this guy's testimony, lots of people out there know more about what he is talking about than I do, so feel free to tear him apart, you may get yourself referenced in a future lesson if you aren't careful!

But I must add one more comment, if you didn't watch the testimony Mr. Black gives to the oversight committee, you miss one of the greatest lines to come out of this whole crisis.  He is pointing out the fact that central banks have often forced CEOs out of their positions and in particular he is mentioning the way that the Bank of England does it.  Apparently they have a luncheon, and he says:

"The board of directors are invited.  They don't say no."  Then gives a little grin suggesting perhaps that the oversight committee is a bunch of sissies compared to the Bank of England since they deal with refusals to appear and re-schedule with some frequency.  Maybe that is why they start banging the gavel in the middle of his speech.