Instructions:

After you have read through Chapter 4 in the Course Text and feel that you have an idea what invalid inference fallacies look like, figure out a couple of fallacies from real world examples. The first example is an excerpt from a 2006 CBS news story, and the second example occurs in the first 2 minutes of a Comedy Central video.

In the “Examples” section below, read the news excerpt and then watch the video (just the first two minutes are important).
Then take a short poll (link below) to choose the main logical fallacies from either Chapter 3 or Chapter 4 that you saw in the examples. If you saw more than one fallacy, there is an option to submit that too. The poll is anonymous, but you will post about your choices in the discussion.
Finally, take part in the discussion. The questions to respond to are below.

The Examples:

News Excerpt:
“Not long after taking office in 2001, [President] Bush pushed for a new education testing law and began portraying skeptics as opposed to holding schools accountable. The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the proposal.

“Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections, the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new Homeland Security Department against Democrats. He told at least two audiences that some senators opposing him were “not interested in the security of the American people.” In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Mr. Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections.”

Source: to an external site.

Video (from Comedy Central back in 2011):
Only the first 2 minutes are important, though the whole thing is only 5 minutes long.

Make a dissusion Post about the fallacies you saw in each example. If you had trouble deciding, tell what difficulty you had trying to figure them out. Explain why you picked the main fallacy, but then also why it could have been one other fallacy. Back up your choice with evidence: what was in the excerpt or video that led you to think of what the fallacy was.

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