McBride Strikes Again

Sheesh. I've not been posting because I've really been trying to enjoy what remains of the summer. That means spending time with the kids, my wife (the woman of my dreams), visiting friends and celebrating birthdays. But, today, I made the mistake of traveling to Jessica McBride's world. Hers is one I have been avoiding mostly because of the mendacity of her posts, but also because it's become somewhat boring to pick at her every written word. However, this entry took the cake. She wrote:

Bill Clinton was, at worst, slightly right of center.

Bill Clinton was incredibly popular.

So, if Bill Clinton was slightly right of center, and he was incredibly popular, the liberals are finally admitting that conservative ideals are incredibly popular with the public, right? They are the mainstream ideals, even if the media won't admit it.


Reading this was enough to cause some bile to rise uncomfortably into my throat. Little did I know she would later surpass herself in utter illogicality.

I should have left well enough alone, but I returned and discovered she had written this response to a comment about her post claiming that her reasoning was a bit off (realism: Correlation does not imply causality.). McBride replied that her piece had been an example of deductive reasoning and laid out this argument.

It's deductive logic.

Bill Clinton was slightly right of center.

Bill Clinton was incredibly popular.

Thus, being right of center must be incredibly popular.

She's right, to an extent. What we have here is a categorical syllogism, though better written if the conclusion had been: "Thus, being right of center was incredibly popular.

Aside from that, the thought occurred to me that her argument was less than one would expect from a 30-something woman, who astonishingly enough teaches at the university level. Her argument barely rose to the level of adolescent playground banter.

If that had been the end of her comment, one might have let it go, saddened that a mind is so misused. Alas, for her, she continued to put finger to keypad and produced a truly remarkable mudpie.

Or, perhaps, that the power of personality matters so much to liberals that they will reject their principles, if you buy that Clinton was slightly right of center and incredibly popular but still argue that the public is not.

To wit, one can only say, "Huh?"

UPDATE: Professor Putnam would probably say my writings on logic need improvement. Illusory Tenant and capper at Whallah need no corrections.