Mark Green Admires the Sensenbrenner Strawman

Congressman and Republican candidate for governor, Mark Green, made an appearance on right wing talker Charlie Syke's show this morning. Among other things, Green commented that F. Jim Sensenbrenner's performance on Meet the Press Sunday was "masterful."

Now I did watch Tim Russert's program Sunday and could not recall one "masterful" moment by Sensenbrenner. After taking a look at the transcript of the show I realized that Sensenbrenner was "masterful" at something during that discussion. No matter how many times Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) would explain why the Senate version of the immigration bill was not amnesty, Sensenbrenner just kept-on-repeating that it was in fact amnesty. He would present an argument that defeated the idea of total amnesty, even though Hagel was clearly not defending or promoting amnesty.

I've got it! Mark Green must admire F. Jim Sensenbrenner's "mastery" of the Strawman! For those that may not be as big of a nerd as myself, the strawman is a logical fallacy. Here is a basic description of the strawman technique by Wikpedia:

A straw man argument is a rhetorical technique based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, since the argument actually presented by the opponent has not been refuted.

If Mark Green is such a fan of the Sensenbrenner Strawman, perhaps he could convince Jedi Jim to take him on as a "Padawan learner" of sorts. With the Mark Green record in Congress, he could probably use all of the training in logical fallacy that is possible.