Assignment 3, Political Debate

While watching the video of Barack Obama and various other politicians, I couldn't help but notice that it was just your run of the mill political exchange. There was nothing unique to it. Every time politics is involved, no matter what the party involved is (and especially if you throw them both together), the same tactics are employed. One of the most dominate tactics, as seen here, is all out attack. It seems to me that no real progress is made toward fixing any of the issues discussed or planning out how to solve the problems, but all effort is spent on personal attacks toward Obama. I'm not saying that an attack would be a bad tactic if you had legitimate evidence to back it up, but no one really ever does. In a way this would be pathos, as the goal is to fire people up and blind them with their own dislike for a certain political figure. They ignore all logic and credibility as long as their source of information for an attack makes the person who they don't like look bad. An example of the pathos seen in the video is the heart wrenching story of the struggling family in bad economy.

Obama handles each of these attacks fairly well, remaining on task by staying with the logos appeal. He counters the attacks by discrediting any statistics given, wether they be true or false, with an equally (if not more) credible source. That's not to say that Obama is free of guilt when it comes to employing these lowly political tactics. To make it in politics these days, it seems that you really have no choice but to stoop this low.