Posted by Sir Four at 12:05pm Jul 28 '09From Wikipedia: "Poisoning the well is a logical fallacy where adverse information about a target is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say."
Before Obama took office, consumers of right-wing media were primed with numerous ad hominems: Obama was alternately a socialist or a communist. He doesn't love America. He sides with terrorists. A constant campaign of attack has been maintained since. Significant portions of the GOP base believe Obama is not a US citizen--not legally the president at all. An entire alternate reality has been constructed in which an anti-American Kenyan-born communist has made it to the Whitehouse, thanks in part to voters being easy dupes, something about ACORN, and "the media" bolstering him and sinking McCain/Palin. Republican politicians play along, kowtowing to the Limbaughs and voting unanimously against Obama initiatives. Hilariously, many of them won't answer whether or not they think Obama is a US-born citizen.
The problem is this- when the well is poisoned, you cannot have a mature and rational debate. Afterall who will rationally consider Obama's healthcare reform when it is already known to be a function of his intent to bring communism to America?
Then, more galling, Obama is mocked for his failure to bridge the partisan divide. To bridge such a divide, there must be willing participants on either side.
Before Obama took office, consumers of right-wing media were primed with numerous ad hominems: Obama was alternately a socialist or a communist. He doesn't love America. He sides with terrorists. A constant campaign of attack has been maintained since. Significant portions of the GOP base believe Obama is not a US citizen--not legally the president at all. An entire alternate reality has been constructed in which an anti-American Kenyan-born communist has made it to the Whitehouse, thanks in part to voters being easy dupes, something about ACORN, and "the media" bolstering him and sinking McCain/Palin. Republican politicians play along, kowtowing to the Limbaughs and voting unanimously against Obama initiatives. Hilariously, many of them won't answer whether or not they think Obama is a US-born citizen.
The problem is this- when the well is poisoned, you cannot have a mature and rational debate. Afterall who will rationally consider Obama's healthcare reform when it is already known to be a function of his intent to bring communism to America?
Then, more galling, Obama is mocked for his failure to bridge the partisan divide. To bridge such a divide, there must be willing participants on either side.