Fresh Air,

Septenthians… you’ve used it before but I hadn’t taken the time to let it sink in to be savored. I’m gonna steal it and give see if it has legs

The fallacy of circumstantial ad hominem arguments is, of course, demostrably true but nonethless remains a favored method. We all practice it to some extent (not defending its use, just examining the phenomenon). We often judge people by the company they keep – lie down with dogs… etc. I recently had a discussion with a friend who found something Al Sharpton said at the DNC to be “on target”. What it was isn’t important to the discussion. Having spent may years in the NYC metro area I have ZERO respect for Al Sharpton. My immediate reaction was to dismiss the comment our of hand due to CAH. Fortunately I paused long enough to realize that my friend had nowhere near the exposure to Al Sharpton that those of us in the NYC metro have. It was a comment easily dismissable without relying on CAH, but CAH sorta piles on anyway.

It seems possible that a CAH attack can be crafted “honestly” in form that is something “better” than fallacy. In a thread yesterday, for example, somebody here at Roger’s Place listed out the “losers” Kerry has pulled into his campaign team. Looking out upon the “leadership” of the Dem party at the DNC we see a good deal of “failure” and “dubious techniques and characters”. At what point does the circumstantial become overwhelming? Prosecutions have, of course, been successfully argued based upon overwhelming circumstantial evidence. That is different that CAH argumentation but at some point the sheer weight of the circumstantial can take on the characteristics of evidence.

Sorry, just rambling.