I like McCain's "beating your wife" joke

[TrogL]

I'm surprised nobody gets it.

McCain, feeling attacked by loaded questions, is raising the issue of logical fallacies.

"Have your stopped beating your wife" is the classic example.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html

[blondeatlast]

1. I get it; but it had nothing to do with what the reporter asked.

He just pulled a random comment out of... somewhere, because he had no real idea what he was talking about.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. I like the joke, I've told it myself.

But it doesn't really fit the question the reporter asked him, nor was it appropriate for somebody running for office.

[Kutjara]

4. But more to the point:

I wonder if he has stopped beating Cindy. :evilgrin:

[RoyGBiv]

3. It's the context ...

It's clear what he meant by it, if awkwardly placed in that series of question, but given the line of questions themselves, it was a really dumb time to use it.

[Ian David]

5. Has McCain stopped calling his wife "The C-Word"? n/t

[The Magistrate]

6. Personally, Sir, It Strikes Me As Healthy And Helpful The Man Admits To Beating His Wife

"More Wars! Less Jobs! McCain '08"

[QueenOfCalifornia]

7. That is not

what he said. It is more what the OP said. McCain never admitted to being a wife beater.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. He said he stopped beating his wife a couple weeks ago.

I take him at his word.

[The Magistrate]

9. Exactly, Sir: As is Said "There's Many A Truth Spoke In Jest"

What pops up to the surface of the mind under a little stress is generally revealing....

[PCIntern]

11. right you are!

Like when he called his wife a trollop and a c--t.

Personally, I liked the use fo the word 'trollop',,,I noted that it was Henry Miller-esque. wonder if mccain read "Tropic of Capricorn"...the c-word is used in there a lot too as is 'trollop'.

[blondeatlast]

10. That's exactly how McSame wants it; why else would he call it "The Straight Talk Express"?

He also told us today, on video, that he voted for the GI Bill yesterday when he wasn't there at all.

If he wants me to belive one, I have to believe the other. I too, want to know when he stopped beating Cindy McCain.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

13. I am no lover of the idiot

but here... this is what the idget was trying to say:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=%22stopped+beating+your+wife%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[blondeatlast]

14. We all know that, but he wasn't asked--and it wasn't at all relevant to what he WAS asked.

I have a sense of humor, I also have a sense of irony, and when compared to his statement about the GI Bill this morning, if I believe one, I have to believe the other.

If he voted for the GI Bill (he didn't), as he says, then he beats his wife.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

15. I do not read

all that into his moronic statement.

I did read the whole article with the transcript and it was weird but so is everything the guy says and does.

What does his lie about the GI bill have to do with this ignorant use of a term?

McBush has far worse things to attack him on. For example the GI Bill which he did not sign and no, he did not help write it.

He opposed the bill and then lied about that. Very odd McCain must ramble on about all kinds of dreams he has.

[Igel]

22. It was. See below. n/t

[JVS]

17. as far as we know

[Forkboy]

12. I know what he meant...but I'm glad he said it for other reasons.

:evilgrin:

[JVS]

18. This should really help him with women of a certain age.

[Bluebear]

16. You think nobody "got it"? McCain was discussing the Governor's infidelity

'Governor Gibbons you may recall started his governorship amidst accusations that he assaulted a cocktail waitress named Chrissy Mazzeo three weeks before Election Day. Mazzeo said Gibbons grabbed her in a parking garage and threatened to sexually assault her. Charges were never filed.'

It's not the joke, it is that it was totally inapropos.

[TrogL]

21. Yeah, but it too a lot of "reading into" by the article author to get there

[malik flavors]

19. I think you missunderstood the joke. The tasteless joke.

[TexasObserver]

20. He's probably lying. He may still beat his wife.

He's got anger management problems, and she's annoying as hell. That's got to lead to some violence on Capt McStubby's part.

[Igel]

23. It's a silly thread, but hey.

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" is listed among logical fallacies, but the list is a grab-bag of different things.

Things like not proving a negative aren't logically impossible, but are onerous; the fallacy is in shifting the (relative) burden of proof.

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" is a question. It, therefore, has no truth value under some forms of semantics. So it's neutral, right? No. It has what's called an uncancellable presupposition. Presuppositions can be cancellable; assertions are cancellable with "yes" or "no".

Embedded in "have you stopped beating your wife?" is the affirmative answer. To parse the question, a step prior to answering it, you have to understand the positive sentnece "you have stopped beating your wife" and put a question 'operator' in front of it. Which means you have to entertain the truthfulness of it; in recall tests often the presupposition is retained in memory as true, even if it's false, esp. if the presupposition was introduced quickly and either no time was given for the listener to mentally deny it or the listener didn't bother to (perhaps because he didn't know it was false). In some languages you plop a question word in front of the positive sentence, sort of like "? you stopped beating your wife", if that helps: To understand and deny this kind of question, you and listeners have to accept the underlying positive form of the question. Semanticists used to hate this because it means we accept "The unicorns are extinct now" as implying there were mythical creatures, and truth-based semantics comes to a grinding halt.

Of course, "stop" strongly implies that there was previous on-going action. One does not stop what one is not doing. That is the underlying presupposition. It's what the addressee can't get to easily.

Now, the presupposition is non-cancellable, which simply means that it cannot be denied with a 'yes' or 'no'. "Have you stopped beating your wife?" "Yes" --> you *were* beating your wife. "No" --> you continue to beat your wife. You have to ignore the form of the question, which is yes/no, and address the presupposition: "I have never beat my wife." In so doing, you ignore the question.

The question immediately prior to McCain's answer had two parts. The first was implicit: Whether or not he snubbed some governor; the second was overt, forcing a yes/no answer to the uncancellable presupposition(s) that he was doing so because of the governor's low rating or because he was doing to him what he was doing to Bush, running away from him:

Maybe it's the governor's approval rating and you are running from him like
you are from the president?)

(Chuckling) And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago….

He had denied the snubbing several times. Now the same question is implied in a yes/no question presupposing the reasons for the snubbing. One has to presuppose that (a) McCain snubbed the governor--which is cancellable--(b) that it's because he's running away from the governor because of his low approval ratings, (c) that he's running away from Bush because of his low approval ratings. He denied (a); easy out--he's objecting to presupposition (a), being asked about it once again with a yes/no question. Less easy out: He's denying (b) or (c), non-cancellable in this form.

[genna]

24. This thorough explanation of why the original question was out of order is EXCELLENT. thank you

The context for the Nevada governor who was accused of threatening or engaging in some form of sexual assault is out of order.

The answer to the question considering those middle aged white women (I say white and middle aged because I thought that was the group whom the MSM said was the most resistant to Obama---no disrespect for middle aged white women who made that switch a long time ago) who are still mad with Obama for winning the primary and are considering McCain as a substitute candidate is OUT OF ORDER.


The only thing that is right/good about this whole thing is sooner or later, reporters will stop giving him the benefit of the doubt for running off at the mouth especially if his diarrhea of the mouth continues.


To suggest that McCain is an actual WIFE BEATER because he told a bad joke is akin to suggesting a morally reprehensible condition that should only be ascribed to actual batterers. Domestic violence is so insidious (I've watched Laura Bush for the last 7 years being afraid that she might actually be suffering silently) that I wouldn't play with this concept. If McCain is actually shown to be or has ever beaten his wife, the GOP right this minute needs to oust him and start over so a credible candidate can stand to be beaten in November.


There is no room in polite society for a woman beater especially when the domination has been in keeping with a high office like Senator.