[Pikamax]

Wow... thats all.

[Jeff Chandler]

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, ... a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

How many times have I heard or read "journalists" do this?

[mathprof]

Some say that JENNIFER LOVEN can't write.

[carlr]

This from the party that has declared Republicans want to "starve children and the poor""keep blacks from voting" and the list goes on and on.

What a bunch of fools suffering from a self imposed idiocy.

[Mike Darancette]

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

That sort of shoots down the argument doesn't it. Some people do say these things and say them in public and often. Then the MSM slavishly repeat it and lavish praise on the sayer.

[Enchante]

Let me see.... this proves that Jennifer Loven, AP Reporterette, is.....

(1) a propaganda hack for the DNC;

(2) a dishonest fraud artist;

(3) guilty of exactly the rhetorical tactics she falsely accuses Pres. Bush of using.

(4) ALL OF THE ABOVE!

[Theresawithanh]

"..."a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion."

I say it's a mere figure of speech, and you guys should just get over it.

[Txsleuth]

This is an AP opinion piece...not news...

Does AP DO opinion/editorial columns?

[andyk]

Wow is right. Now the AP is concerned with straw-man arguments? How dare that level that kind of attack in a supposed news story.

[goldstategop]

Bush mangles logic so badly, that according to Kerry loving Jennifer Loven, he's bested by the Democrats. Call it another variant of the Bush Is Stupid argument the Democrats have trotted out for years now. They ridicule him for allegedly using straw man arguments in his speeches but they can't say why he has been able to persuade the public he's right. The liberal contempt for the American people just has to show up - the subtext of Loven's piece is we're all dummies too. Brilliant!

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Ma3lst0rm]

The President is being far more polite than I. I'd use phrases like "Some cowards say...", "Some people who hate America say...", "Some who wish to see this country torn down say...", "Some who believe government efficiency will make healthcare better...". It isn't that the President is setting up strawmen, it is that the ideas of Democrats are nothing more than straw and rather than knocking the strawmen down I'd like to see the President set them on fire. The time for polite discourse ended shortly after 9-11 when the Democratic party decided that rather than place the interests of America first they would do everything in their power to divide people on the basis of envy and by attacking our country, our soldiers and the American way of life.

[andyk]

Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

But the AP and the democrats do that all the time to conservative positions!

[Axhandle]

I don't disagree with much of this. However, what I find absurd is that the author thinks that this activity is largely restricted to the President. Every politician does this. That doesn't make it right, but it does make the author kind of a moron for singling out the President.

[Tarpon]

So an allegedly hard news agency news does political-editorials and calls it news. Who woulda thunk it.

[King Prout]

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

nonsense. many do indeed say these. few of the big names will say them explicitly, but parsing what they do say does generate a position statement in all denotative ways identical to the more overt statements made by the DU/Kos-Kids Krowd.

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

hrmn... and when a lamestream talking-head uses the same phrasing to camouflage the fact he is saying "I say/I believe", in order to editorialize without restraint or data in what is presented as a "straight news" segment, does this author call them on it?
doubtful.

[jazusamo]

AP? Enough said.

[Darkwolf377]

"Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world," he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. "I strongly disagree."

Is this writer so freaking thick that she actually believes that speaking this way is somehow deceptive? It's merely a convenient tool of rhetoric--does she actually expect him to explain every nuance of every single argument opposing his policies in his speeches? No--you just slap a label on the other side and go to town. People've been doing this as long as people have been communicating.

Of course, this reporter will soon be writing about every single other politician who does this--Ted Kennedy claiming Robert Bork will bring us back to the days of back alley abortions, for example--unless, of course, she claims Bush is the ONLY politician who does this, in which case she is even more guilty of this tactic than is the President.

[John Lenin]

This will explain it.

In Georgetown's East Village, Roger Ballentine and his wife Jennifer Loven have sold their quaint two bedroom semi- detached Federal house at 1346 29th Street, N.W.

Roger Ballentine is president of Green Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in energy and environmental issues, and was previously deputy assistant to President Clinton for environmental initiatives and chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force. He also sits on the board of directors of Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF)along with actors Ed Begley, Jr. and Larry Hagman. Jennifer Loven is a reporter for the Associated Press.

[Cicero]

Does Jennifer Loven think she's Maureen Dowd? Since when did AP start providing leftist editorials as if they were news articles? This one doesn't even PRETEND to be news.

[Berlin_Freeper]

More proof that AP is the Democrats Attack Dog.

I bet Jennifer Loven even looks like a dog, she sounds mighty frustrated.

[MEG33]

Some would say this is an editorial piece..not objective reporting.