Logical Fallacy: Red Herring in Obama's Campaign

Barack Obama's political campaign displays the logical fallacy of red herring in an advertisement commercial about his opponent John McCain. In this advertisement, Obama makes the effort to merely "win" the argument and ultimately the political race rather than emphasizing a critical issue about the nation's economy. The commercial starts with the claim that John McCain does not "understand the fundamentals of the economy." However, it ends with the assertion that McCain owns seven houses, essentially diverting the attention from the issue of the economy to how much McCain's houses cost. This represents red herring fallacy in that the first topic about McCain being ignorant about the fundamentals of the economy, then a new topic is introduced that is partially relevant but does not fully support the issue presented in the beginning of the argument. Therefore, the original topic is "abandoned" (The Nizkor Project 2011), and a new topic about McCain's houses is introduced. In essence, the argument is "supported" or reasoned by a distracting subject change rather than efficient arguments that strongly relate to the purpose of the claim. The fallacy presented in Obama's campaign advertisement depicts that simply drawing the attention away from the issues presented does not prove an argument reasonable. 

Obama's advertisement can be found here!

Retrospective: The Semester in a Nutshell

Writing blog entries is the transition from the prewriting stage to the first draft stage. Not only does it allow me to expand on my thoughts on one idea, but it also provides me with positive and negative feedback. I have always been acclimated to studying by myself, and I never thought that collaborative learning was effective. However, sharing opinions with others helped me broaden my horizons. I always had better ideas about what to write about after I read others' comments. Also, the due dates on the blogs helped me to manage my time more efficiently, and it gave me more time to think about the essay prompts.

Blogs are useful in the brainstorming process, and I might participate in class-related blogs to exchange ideas for a paper or even about issues in today's society. There is a similar student organization called CIRCLE, which is a group of students who comment back and forth about current events dealing with racial discrimination and stereotypes. I am strongly considering participating in CIRCLE next semester because I found that collaborative learning should definitely be a part of my learning style and any career field I choose to pursue in the future.