Another aspect of ad hominem attacks is their off-the-cuff, lump-sum power. It's basically throwing the first punch in a fight, what you do when you have no obvious retort, e.g., "Oh yeah!? Well, Michael Moore/Rush Limbaugh is fat!"
Is everything Fox News reports wrong? No. They just twist a lot of it to fit their political agenda. This is not something I'm making up; there are entire web sites devoted to documenting it. There is a tendency to question the accuracy and impartiality of Fox News, because they have repeatedly, demonstrably shown their lack of accuracy and impartiality.
Perhaps a more apt example: If I call Sarah Palin an idiot, and don't follow it up with anything, that is certainly an ad hominem attack. If I say she knows nothing about a certain subject or number of subjects about which she professes expertise, and I document them, and then call her an idiot based on that info, it's still insulting but it's not ad hominem.
Any observation upon her alleged idiocy must also be tempered by the fact that she turned her physical attractiveness and a couple of years as Alaska governor into a vice-presidential nomination, a presidential front-runner status, a lucrative speaking career, TV shows for her daughter, and an iconic status in popular culture. I believe the term is, "crazy like a fox".
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-05-13 04:21 pm (UTC)Is everything Fox News reports wrong? No. They just twist a lot of it to fit their political agenda. This is not something I'm making up; there are entire web sites devoted to documenting it. There is a tendency to question the accuracy and impartiality of Fox News, because they have repeatedly, demonstrably shown their lack of accuracy and impartiality.
Perhaps a more apt example: If I call Sarah Palin an idiot, and don't follow it up with anything, that is certainly an ad hominem attack. If I say she knows nothing about a certain subject or number of subjects about which she professes expertise, and I document them, and then call her an idiot based on that info, it's still insulting but it's not ad hominem.
Any observation upon her alleged idiocy must also be tempered by the fact that she turned her physical attractiveness and a couple of years as Alaska governor into a vice-presidential nomination, a presidential front-runner status, a lucrative speaking career, TV shows for her daughter, and an iconic status in popular culture. I believe the term is, "crazy like a fox".