"Bush falls victim to a bad new argument for the Iraq war."

But I confess to being uncomfortable with a term in paragraph two..."decision scientists"?! It reminds me much too much of a WC Fields snowjob.

I wonder why he has not offered the "I am a blithering idiot who wanted the war because Saddam dissed my daddy" argument.

It has one thing going for it that the many others do not. It has a ring of truth.

"Sunk cost fallacy" isn't a term I've bumped into before, and it is valuable in pointing to a particularly species of fallacious 'logic'. As David Halberstam noted (somewhere in something I read this last week), the argument "we can't leave Viet Nam now or all those kids lives are wasted" began to appear as early as 1964!!!

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that,
should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

I see, so you think the Venezuelans would be justified in invading Virginia to hunt down Pat Robertson?

Frank Apisa wrote:

I wonder why he has not offered the "I am a blithering idiot who wanted the war because Saddam dissed my daddy" argument.

It has one thing going for it that the many others do not. It has a ring of truth.

It has nothing to do with Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, which he stated about a thousand times back then, but actually, attempting to assassinate the president is a valid reason for invading another country.

Setanta wrote:

I see, so you think the Venezuelans would be justified in invading Virginia to hunt down Pat Robertson?

Not relevant, and I am unwilling to allow someone to attempt to defeat my point by means of fragmenting it into multiple questions. It is undeniable that an attempt to assassinate our president is a valid reason for invading another country.

blatham wrote:

"Sunk cost fallacy" isn't a term I've bumped into before, and it is valuable in pointing to a particularly species of fallacious 'logic'. As David Halberstam noted (somewhere in something I read this last week), the argument "we can't leave Viet Nam now or all those kids lives are wasted" began to appear as early as 1964!!!

Much earlier:

In McBeth, Act 3, Scene 4, William Shakespeare wrote:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that,
should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Observant fellow, that Shakespeare. It's a pity he doesn't have a blog -- people ought to read him more often.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Setanta wrote:

I see, so you think the Venezuelans would be justified in invading Virginia to hunt down Pat Robertson?

Not relevant, and I am unwilling to allow someone to attempt to defeat my point by means of fragmenting it into multiple questions. It is undeniable that an attempt to assassinate our president is a valid reason for invading another country.

No it isn't!


NO IT ISN'T!

blatham wrote:

But I confess to being uncomfortable with a term in paragraph two..."decision scientists"?! It reminds me much too much of a WC Fields snowjob.

Is this a game of chance, Mr. Sousé?

Not the way I play it.

We better take precautions. We've attempted to have Castro assassinated. We can never be too vigilant against the possibility of a Cuban invasion. Hell, Miami is probably just crawling with fifth columnists . . .