Bogus Syllogisms

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Speech Misheard Round the World: "The president's inaugural paean to freedom was the culmination of these arguments. The stratagem began immediately after 9/11 with the president's claims that the terrorist attacks were a deliberate assault on America's freedom. The next stage of the argument came after no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, thus eliminating the reason for the war, and it took the form of a bogus syllogism: all terrorists are tyrants who hate freedom. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who hates freedom. Therefore Saddam Hussein is a terrorist whose downfall was a victory in the war against terrorism."

I'd like to be able to just disagree with a respectable position, rather than have to shake my head in wonder at the function of the medulla oblongata that keeps the heart pumping and the lungs breathing even when the brain is apparently dead.