Griper Blade: "I Know How to Win Wars"

I've written before that a good way to spot a bad argument is to look for declarations. When someone throws out a claim without any proof, then there's a good chance that they're pulling stuff out of their butt. FOX News offers an excellent example with their reliance on the term "some people say." It allows them to cite a source for their assertions that's so vague that it might as well not exist -- in some cases, it doesn't. "Some people say Barack Obama's not patriotic," a foxbot will tell us and we're up in the air over how reliable these "some people" are. Are these "some people" the guys around the FOX watercooler? Show me an argument that hinges on a declaration and I'll show you a poorly crafted chunk of BS.

Keeping that in mind, we can look at a speech John McCain gave yesterday to a crowd in New Mexico and conclude that he was shoveling it deep. "I know how to win wars. I know how to win wars," Baghdad Johnny told an audience in Albuquerque. "And if I'm elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory, I know how to do that."

There's a slight problem with this declaration of competency on McCain's part -- we haven't actually won the war in Iraq. McCain's big idea was the surge. Now he apparently has nuthin'. That's it. If this is how you win a war, where's the big win? When it comes to Iraq, McCain hammers the argument that "the surge worked." Fine, for the sake of argument, let's let him have that one. The surge worked.

Now what?...

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