The Weisberg Fallacy

By JAMES TARANTO

DENVER--One of the passengers on our flight here from New York was Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate. We ran into him at baggage claim and thought of saying something about his Saturday morning article titled "If Obama Loses." But we thought better of it, opting instead for a friendly chat about orthopedic infirmities. Besides, this article really needs to be rebutted publicly, so here goes.

Weisberg argues, as the subheadline puts it, that "racism is the only reason McCain might beat" Obama. Weisberg has come in for a lot of criticism for smugness and his uncharitable attitude toward fellow Americans. But we shall begin by focusing on his atrocious logic.

Here is Weisberg's central claim:

Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America. But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

Weisberg is committing the logical fallacy of denying the antecedent. This consists of an argument in the following form:

If P, then Q.
Not P.
Therefore, not Q.

In this case, P is "Obama wins the presidency," and Q is (in our simplified paraphrase) "America has overcome its legacy of racism."

Another way of formulating Weisberg's argument is this: Obama's victory is a sufficient condition for America to have overcome its legacy of racism. Therefore, Obama's victory is a necessary condition for America to have overcome its legacy of racism. This is true only if one accepts as a premise that Obama's victory is logically equivalent to America's having overcome its legacy of racism--a silly premise, given that Obama's even winning the nomination was contingent on so many factors.

That Weisberg's argument is invalid does not necessarily mean that his conclusion is false. An invalid argument can lead to a conclusion that is either true or false, as you can see from these two examples:

If Blaze is a man, then Blaze is a human being.
Blaze is not a man.
Therefore, Blaze is not a human being.

If Hillary Clinton is a man, then Hillary Clinton is a human being.
Hillary Clinton is not a man.
Therefore, Hillary Clinton is not a human being.

The first conclusion is true, and the second is false. But the premises given are insufficient to determine the verity of the conclusions. You need additional empirical data--namely, the facts that Blaze is a cat and Hillary Clinton is a woman.

Weisberg does try to marshal evidence to show that racism accounts for opposition to Obama. He starts with some poll data, from which he draws unwarranted conclusions. His strongest argument is this one:

In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters race was a factor in his or her decision. Seventy-five percent of those people voted for Clinton. You can do the math: 12 percent of the Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that it didn't vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American.

That 12% number is too high--it should be just under 10%--because Weisberg has managed to exclude from "the Pennsylvania primary electorate" all nonwhite voters! Uh, who exactly is racist, Jake?

We analyzed the numbers back in April, and we also pointed out that the question of whether race was "a factor" was an ambiguous one. The Pennsylvania primary occurred in the aftermath of the revelation that Obama's "spiritual mentor," Jeremiah Wright, adhered to crackpot anti-American ideas. Given the racially charged nature of those ideas, it would certainly be plausible for someone to say race was "a factor" in his vote against Obama even if he had no objection to Obama's race per se.

Weisberg, however, argues that virtually any reason for voting against Obama is a cover for antiblack racism:

Such prejudice usually comes coded in distortions about Obama and his background. To the willfully ignorant, he is a secret Muslim married to a black-power radical. Or--thank you, Geraldine Ferraro--he only got where he is because of the special treatment accorded those lucky enough to be born with African blood. Some Jews assume Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel in the way they assume other black politicians to be. To some white voters (14 percent in the CBS/New York Times poll), Obama is someone who, as president, would favor blacks over whites. Or he is an "elitist" who cannot understand ordinary (read: white) people because he isn't one of them. Or he is charged with playing the race card, or of accusing his opponents of racism, when he has strenuously avoided doing anything of the sort.

It would take too long to rebut this point by point, but it's worth recalling what Geraldine Ferraro actually said, back in March: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." That is, according to Ferraro, part of Obama's appeal was that voters wanted to elect a black man as president.

Ferraro's belief that Obama's race attracts voters may or may not be accurate, but the only prejudice it reflects is a prejudice about the voters. Weisberg, in asserting that Obama's race repels voters, also is expressing a prejudice about the voters. Ferraro just happens to have a higher opinion of the voters than Weisberg does. And when Weisberg imagines that voters' reasons for opposing Obama are "coded" racism, he expects us to accept his own prejudices as evidence. In this he is far from alone; see our previous items about Patricia Williams and Colbert King.

So, has America overcome its legacy of racism? Those who say "no" seem to offer only faulty logic and imaginary data to support their position. Still, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. To conclude definitively that they are wrong would be the argumentum ad ignoratiam, another logical fallacy. If Obama loses, racism may be the reason. Saddam Hussein may yet prove to have had weapons of mass destruction.

Wake Up, America!
"Joe Biden got the call from Barack Obama while undergoing a root canal," the Associated Press reports:

As he sat in a dental chair Thursday, Biden received word that Obama was on the line and interrupted the procedure to accept the presidential candidate's invitation to be his running mate.

Hey, count your blessings, Joe. At least you weren't awakened at 3 a.m. That's when Obama sent out the text message announcing his pick, apparently in another dig at Hillary Clinton (remember the "3 a.m." ad?). Our BlackBerry was set to make a tone when a text message came in, so our sleep actually was interrupted by the Obama text. And we already knew what it said, for the news media had reported it before we went to bed. As the Associated Press reported before 1 a.m. ET:

The official who spoke did so on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt a text-message announcement the Obama campaign promised for Saturday morning.

We kind of wish he had pre-empted the text message, so we could have stayed asleep. Although the botched announcement did give us some amusement courtesy of "HawkeyeX," posting at DemocraticUnderground.com:

Did CNN get the first text message--NO. CNN is lying to you--hoping to trump the Obama story.

And they're tripping all over themselves trying to be FIRST to break in the VP story.

For all I know, they could be DEAD wrong, and Obama calmly pushes the button to send the massive text--and saying it's $SOME_OTHER_AMERICAN_NOT_BIDEN

How the [obscenity] would you feel if you believe in M$M? I am taking it with a grain of salt, and that's my motto.

M$M is a Republican operative's tool. Don't believe in the hype.

Say it ain't Joe, O!

Neil and Pray
"Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock [Saturday] welcomed Joe Biden's nomination as Barack Obama's running mate," London's Daily Telegraph reports. And why shouldn't he? If you're American and have heard of Neil Kinnock, he almost certainly has Biden to thank for it. As the Telegraph recounts:

Veteran US senator Mr Biden's hopes of winning the 1988 White House race were scuppered when it emerged he copied parts of a speech from Lord Kinnock without acknowledging him.

On our flight to Denver, we watched "No Country for Old Men." We'd been planning on seeing this for a while, since it won the Oscar and we like the Coen brothers, but it occurred to us that the title might make a good anti-McCain slogan. Then again, Obama's running mate is a senior citizen too. Toronto's Globe and Mail trots out a hoary cliché (Dorothy Rabinowitz complained about it back in 2000) and declares:

At 65, his age, compared with the 47-year-old senator from Illinois, combined with policy expertise and a long list of legislative accomplishments, gives him an undeniable grey-haired gravitas.

Biden was elected to the Senate when Obama was 12, and has 32 years' seniority on him. Yet "gravitas" is a hard word to apply to someone with such a penchant for silly utterances. "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat," he told Cincinnati's Enquirer in 2005.

The month after the 9/11 attacks, The New Republic profiled Biden and caught this brainstorm:

At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.

The staffers offer various objections, but no one notes the obvious one: Iran is not Arab and is the enemy of most Arab regimes.

A Chicago Tribune editorial recounts Biden's recent antics as a senior Judiciary Committee member:

Three years ago, during Senate Judiciary Committee questioning of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, Biden memorably warned Roberts to give "short answers," then filibustered into the cameras for 12 of his assigned 20 minutes. Lest anyone miss his superiority to Roberts, Biden added theatrics The Washington Post described as "the full Al Gore: While Roberts spoke, Biden shook his head, put his face in his hand, pouted and glared disgustedly."

Quirks and all, though, Joe Biden is a plausible president. He's a grown-up.

After describing Biden's childish antics, the Trib deems him "a grown-up"? Well, at least they didn't say he has gravitas.

The Tribune's Eric Zorn notes another great one, from Biden's speech Saturday at his debut appearance as Obama's running mate:

The next president . . . will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America, but literally, literally to change the direction of the world.

They're going to change the direction of the world--literally. And you thought global warming was bad.