Here is a truly exemplary bit of faulty argumentation from UNCG’s Carolinian:

I’m getting a Ph.D in rhetoric, so I’m often asked what rhetoric is. I have a lot of answers prepared, but my favorite one is this: “Rhetoric is the study of theories of argumentation.” The person always asks, “You study how to argue?” And I get to say, “Yes.” And tilt my head and smile and the person shuts up, unwilling to, well, argue about it.

Up first is argument ad verecundiam, the appeal to authority (literally, argument from respect). It’s closely related to ipse dixit (he himself has said it), whereby the truth of a proposition is supposedly established by the mere fact that the speaker has some familiarity with the subject at hand (e.g., “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”).

Aside: it seems strange that one would seek an argument over the statement of one’s Ph.D. subject.

Mohamed ElBaradei is the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Seymour Hersh, in an article on the United States’ plan for Iran and its nuclear program, reported that “ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iraninan leaders ‘want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side’-in Washington. ‘At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.'”

In other words, Iran wants to fight; the neocons who control Washington want to fight.

Genuine ipse dixit there in reporting El-Baradei’s concern, which allows her to ignore El-Baradei’s use of petitio principii (ratified in her “[i]n other words” summation). The man is a Nobel Prize?winner, after all! The author cites (secondhand, by the way) El-Baradei’s concern as factual, meaning she needs not establish (a) whether the Iranians truly want a fight nor (b) “neocon” control of Washington ? note, the latter proposition needs to be established before one can begin to argue (c) whether the “neocons who control Washington want to fight.” Petitio principii (begging the question) is the “When did you stop beating your wife?” fallacy.

No one is willing to argue about nuclear weapons. When argument fails, fists fly. When we can’t negotiate, someone gets sued, or slapped, or bombed. Why in the world are our politicians – politicians, professional talkers – unwilling to talk about Iran’s possible nukes?

More begging the question, followed by argument ab attributo fabula (the infamous straw man argument). The author not only doesn’t bother to prove her proposition that “[n]o one is willing to argue about nuclear weapons,” but also she follows it up by asking, essentially, why they think the way she says they do.

Given the subject (nuclear war in the near future), I’d say this is also degenerating into an argument ex terrori. Now to the really good stuff:

Remember that brick-sized waste of tree called The 9/11 Commission Report? I’m sure you all read it. In case you forgot, on page 362, it says this: “But the enemy is not just ‘terrorism,’ some generic evil. … It is a threat posed by Islamist terrorism.” They continue: “It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground – not even respect for life – on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated.” …

The point is, our government is racist and xenophobic. In print, in its own report. The magic words “there is no common ground” simply wouldn’t fly if the Commission were talking about white people in Europe. Because they would be talking about white people (like most of us) in Europe (where a lot of us came from) who are probably Christian (like most of us).

Iran is an Islamic state full of brown people: there might as well be a big ol’ bull’s eye painted over Tehran. No negotiation. No dialogue. Only destruction.

Remember, please, this is (ostensibly) Ph.D.-worthy argument here. These are not the idle ramblings of a paranoid college sophomore accustomed to the race-baiting rhetoric so prevalent in American academe. Our nascent “doctor of rhetoric” is here using statements in a page in a government report to prove that the U.S. government is “racist and xenophobic” and willing to annihilate a “state full of brown people.” Her basis? The statement says the threat is posed by “Islamist terrorism,” a creed with which “there is no common ground.” She neither attempts to prove how “Islamic terrorism” equals “brown people” nor disputes the commission’s statements.

This apparently is doctoral-level rhetorical analysis, according to UNC-Greensboro. As a student of rhetoric and a taxpayer in North Carolina, I hope I’m wrong about that. Maybe I am ? its basis, after all, is solely the testimony of someone whose word I cannot trust.