Mark and Ajit, Sitting in a Tree . . . .

In our previous post, we noted that Mark Hyman recently used a “bait and switch” argumentative tactic, praising the Trump administration’s official ending of obsolete Y2K regulations as a way of implying the wisdom of Trump in going after all manner of consumer protections.

Hyman’s recent commentary on internet privacy is a logical follow up on this. In it, he argues that rules protecting consumer privacy and confidentiality regarding their online information were rightfully quashed by the Trump administration since they were unnecessary.

Key to his argument was that these protections were unfair because they applied only to telecommunications companies (i.e. internet providers) but didn’t apply to online services such as Google and Facebook. The federal agency charged with enforcing these new rules was the FCC, which, Hyman charged, was “playing favorites.”

Why Y2K? Classic Bait-and-Switch Argumentation

Last time around, we noted that a common rhetorical technique/fallacy is to attack one unrepresentative case as typical of the class to which it belongs. The same thing works the other way: praising a single example as a way of suggesting all others are just as good.

A case in point is Mark Hyman’s recent praise of the Trump administration’s elimination of regulations regarding the “Y2K” software glitch from days of yore.

Hyman notes that it is silly to have regulations/policies in place for something that happened 17 years ago (and didn’t do much even at the time).

Fair enough (although it’s largely a symbolic move, since apparently these regulations/policies are understandably ignored today). But if you think this is about Y2K, think again.

Good background on Sinclair

This is worth a read for those interested in the modus operandi of Sinclair:

http://www.salon.com/2017/07/21/a-short-history-of-the-right-wing-politics-of-sinclair-broadcasting_partner/

Cherry Picking the Minimum Wage Issue

Mark Hyman’s recent commentary on the alleged negative side effects of Seattle’s experiment with raising the minimum wage is a fine example of a fairly typical argumentative technique: when wishing to attack a general principle, choose a single specific instance to stand in for the whole—preferably one that appears particularly vulnerable.

This allows one to narrow a complex topic down to one concrete, simple (and sometimes simplistic) instance. And if this instance is atypical of the norm (and therefore much more susceptible to attack) but can be made to seem typical, so much the better.

It’s true that Hyman does not overtly use the Seattle instance to call into question the concept of the minimum wage as a whole, but it is no stretch to assume this is what he has in mind, given that the minimum wage is anathema in most uber-conservative circles.

Hyman Vilifies Nobel Peace Prize Recipient to Attack Clinton Foundation

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned an earlier commentary Hyman references in his most recent one. In it, he attacks the Clinton Foundation (a bête noire of conservatives and key player in many anti-Clinton conspiracy theories).  One can rightly ask why he would bother doing this months and months after the election, and the answer is fairly obvious: throwing out potential "scandals" can create noise in the system that might minimally reduce attention to the growing Trump/Russia scandal.

I won’t delve into it too deeply, but suffice it to say, it’s another tour de force in poor argumentation.

Hyman’s ire about the Clinton Foundation is raised by alleged skullduggery in Bangladesh(!). Hyman spins a narrative about an innocent victim of the dastardly Clintons:

Sajeeb Wazed Joy is a permanent U.S. resident. He’s lived here for nearly two decades. He also happens to the son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. This is where the problems began, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

Bangladesh authorities began investigating Grameen Bank in 2010. The bank’s managing director was Muhammad Yunus. He also happened to be a big donor to the Clinton Foundation.

According to Joy, State Department officials began threatening him. He was warned he would be audited by the IRS unless he convinced his mother, the Bangladesh prime minister, to end the investigation of the Clinton Foundation donor.

Hyman's Attempts at Rhetorical Misdirection Leave Him Lost

Hyman’s latest commentary is kinda-sorta about the Clinton Foundation, but mostly about the McCain Institute, and the whole exercise turns into a train wreck in fairly short order. This shouldn’t surprise when, in the midst of nearly daily revelations about the attack on America’s democratic system by a foreign adversary with the intent to elevate Trump to the presidency, Hyman begins his commentary thusly:

“Politicians who craft U.S. policy while accepting foreign donations must be closely scrutinized.”

(Pause for laughter).

The underlying rhetorical goal is obviously to engage in some “muddying of the waters” by throwing out other stories about politicians being overly cozy with foreign countries to dilute the daily damning revelations regarding the Trump/Russia scandal. 

How One Can Be Right but Still So Wrong

File this under the “a broken clock is right twice a day”, but add an asterisk.

In his most recent “Behind the Headlines” segment, Mark Hyman attacks New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for the governor’s proposal to take surplus money from the state’s largest non-profit health insurance organization to pay for opioid addiction treatment who lack the resources to pay for it.

This is a controversial proposal, and one that’s been met with resistance by both Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature. And it’s almost certainly not the ideal way to go about dealing with the issue  (the issue, as most involving New Jersey politics tend to be, is byzantine and involves large numbers of players and agendas, which is probably the best reason to not be terribly sanguine about Hyman's argument doing it justice).

Hyman rakes Christie over the coals for this, portraying it as an attempt by Christie to “seize money from a business.” Hyman notes that although the cause might be noble, the money should not be taken from this source (presumably because it would mean redistributing wealth from “makers” to “takers”).

Sinclair Broadcasting vs. John Oliver: "This F&%#-ing Guy"

John Oliver’s piece on Sinclair was a thing of beauty, and you owe it to yourself to see it. And he certainly doesn’t need any help defending himself, particularly given the impotence of Hyman’s attempted rebuttal (apparently Sinclair folks haven’t gotten the memo not to respond to someone who is smarter and funnier than you—it never ends well).

What is worth noting, however, is how Hyman manages to undercut his own points.

Hyman frames his response by advising us that we shouldn’t take anything John Oliver says seriously, and then goes on to do precisely that, with the twist being that he misreports (or misunderstands) the content of Oliver’s argument.

Hyman says “Oliver wanted his viewers to be horrified at Sinclair’s size” (but, weren’t we told Oliver was just about being funny? Ah, details.). The rebuttal to this is that Oliver works for HBO, which is owned by Time Warner, which is much bigger than Sinclair Broadcasting.

Once More Unto the Breach: Let's Rebuild this Party Right!

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Mark Hyman’s recent commentary in which he pretends to call for a strong Democratic Party could have made some salient points about growing political polarization, the significance of a “post-ideological” president, the importance (or lack thereof) of parties in a year when the leadership of each major party took it on the chin.

But salient points are not what one ought to expect from Mr. Hyman.

Instead, we get more of what—to some of us, at least—is an all-too-familiar horde of logical fallacies, unsupported innuendo, and a dash of casual race baiting.

Nominally, Hyman is opining about the importance in our democracy of two strong parties.  Mark is apparently losing sleep about the Democrats not being up to the challenge of being the GOP’s sparring partner.

This is, of course, simply an insincere rhetorical framing, using the old rhetorical warhorses of “insincere advice” and “faint praise” to feign concern while condemning.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.  Rhetorical novelty would be really asking for the moon in this case.

Behind "Behind the Headlines": What's the Point?

This blog’s purpose is to serve as an ongoing rhetorical critique of Sinclair Broadcasting’s editorial segments, most particularly “Behind the Headlines with Mark Hyman.”  This does not mean that I am simply offering a “pro” to Hyman’s “con.”  Rather, the main purpose is to critique the way Hyman makes his arguments, showing how they are, content aside, poorly done.  In the process, the content of his assertions will often be shown to be in error and/or countered, but the primary goal is to shine a light on how bad a rhetorician Hyman is (and, by synecdoche, what a poor contributor to the public sphere Sinclair Media is).

This is not new territory for me.