Ok, thanks for that explanation of your inteperpretive process. I still think it's a little skewed, but I can at least follow the road map of your thoughts, and agree that you were being neither obtuse nor purposely misleading.

I hereby unwithdraw my earlier apology and raise you one apology.:)

Nah. Screw you.:)

Figuratively, of course.

You know, I'm still of a mind to call some degree of shenanigans on this one.

Your use of "exact quote" is indicative of some level of deceit. At best, you never looked up the quote and pulled it up from memory and labeled it "exact quote". But the missing period indicates the more likely scenario, you very selectively dissected the quote to only what you wanted.

Yes, you had a perfectly reasonable interpretation, even within context. But it's still a distortion of the full picture that tilts the conversation in your direction. Honestly, using "exact quote" can't BE any more of a textbook logical fallacy example, namely appeal to authority. The rest of the sentence introduced a level of ambiguity to the sentence that you just didn't want to deal with and by saying "exact quote" you are obviously implying you looked it up, copied and pasted in whole. Whether or not that ambiguity invalidates your point is irrelevant at that point. By calling it an exact quote, you've started with a lie.

Sorry Leo, I have too much respect for your communication skills to think that you didn't have SOME intent in quoting it like that. Even if it was just because it meant you could chop a paragraph off your post.

Oh, is this the quote you all are talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaG6s...eature=related

Notice later that day Iran went from being a tiny threat to a grave threat?

Also notice, not that it really means anything beyond hometown pride/trivia...that the quote in question was delivered in Portland, Oregon:)

Again, I didn't discount that Leo had a valid point. I simply claimed that by presenting a dissected version of what was said he was framing the discussion under a distorted premise in a way that just happened to remove ambiguity that existed, but my detract form his point.

Perhaps he did just see the quote as he pasted it, quoted by some secondary source and didn't bother to find the original full context himself. If so I suppose I would apologize some for my tone. But it's lazy and still represents someone's conscious decision to deceive.

To find the quote I had in mind, I googled something like "Obama Iran threat" (don't remember exactly). I grabbed one that wasn't a video link and and took all of the quote that was listed on that particular site and pasted that. I did not chop off the the portion of the quote that I felt skewed it from from my interpretation. I knew the basics of the entire quote Tom gave, and that hadn't altered my interpretation of it.

One thing that I certainly understand about this place is that it is not possible to be factually incorrect without it (usually) rapidly being brought to the attention of all. I would dare not to insult the intelligence of the posters here in attempting to do that.

One other thing I completely forgot to mention is that in linking Iran to Cuba and Venezuela he is equating the three in terms of threat. At least in how I read it. I may have missed something McCain or Bush has said, but I don't think anyone has called them threats to the US. They're more like annoying mosquitos - best not to let them breed (and no doubt Chvez is looking to expand his influence in South America), but certainly no threat.

I wonder if the Republican spinners are saying the same. The party line has been "any country that isn't a democracy is always a threat" since WWII.

Kind of an expanded Truman doctrine feel indeed.

I meant Republican party doctrine. As in, Red Scare, Axis of Evil, etc.

The Truman doctrine revolved around the red scare, so I think you're right on. It now seems to be expanded to include the islamoterrorist scare.