Change the Subject


December 20th, 2005
ABC's Terry Moran asked Dick Cheney, "Are you troubled at all that more than 100 people in U.S. custody have died -- 26 of them now being investigated as criminal homicides -- people beaten to death, suffocated to death, died of hypothermia in U.S. custody?" The vice president replied, "No. I won't accept your numbers, Terry. But I guess one of the things I'm concerned about is that as we get farther and farther away from 9/11, and there have been no further attacks against the U.S., there seems to be less and less concern about doing what's necessary in order to defend the country."

Wait a minute...if he won't accept the numbers, what ARE the numbers? And how did we get from there to here? He seems to equate concern for the deaths of dissidents with a lack of concern for the deaths of the workers in the World Trade Center. Is that a "change the subject" trick, or is it truly a logic trick x = y because I say so? Or is he saying that we know for sure that those 26 people were responsible for the World Trade Center attack, and that capital punishment is okay for them even though it is outlawed in most states and countries?

Interesting technique there, Richard....