Obama Began His Presidency With an Apology Tour

This was not a debate about whether or not denigrating America was good or bad - it was a debate about whether or not it happened. By spending so much time angrily condemning "Obama's apology tour"… my partner forgot to prove that any apology tour actually occurred. The Following Facts are Relevant: The transcripts of the speeches in question exist – and are easily researched My partner is a skillful debater and researcher, who has written about this subject previously Therefore, if there exists any apologies in any of the transcripts from the seven-speech “apology tour” then he should have been able to present them, and subject them to review during this debate. (He has not done so, and now the period in which such new arguments may be presented is over. ) It is reasonable to state that my partner was unable to locate any clear cut examples of apologies during this time frame because they do not exist. In accepting this debate, I made only two requests as to the conduct of the contest: that we use standard dictionaries, and that we set aside the final round for summaries of our best arguments. Any other rules could have been negotiated, and would have been respected – no such negotiations were initiated. Therefore, in order to honor the agreements that we made in setting up this contest, I will restrain my commentary in this round to only summarizing my most effective arguments, and offering only the rebuttals that are most relevant - as space permits. My most effective argument, in my opinion, is that my partner failed to present even one example of an apology made by the president during the course of the “apology tour. ” It was incumbent upon him to establish the existence of such apologies, to present examples of them to the debate so that they may be fairly evaluated. The fact that this never happened is – to my mind – fair evidence that they do not exist. I provided my partner with a full round more than what I was allowed to use in which to present these apologies for debate. (I had only one round to his two – the final round was set aside for summaries only). In the first round, he attempted to provide a logical justification as to why even the most innocuous statement of imperfection should be considered an apology along the lines of a “small child accidentally breaks something and brings the broken object to his parents while crying. ” He never gave a single example of the President apologizing in this way. Expressions of Regret: The following examples of “expressions of regret” were put forward by my partner, as evidence that the President was “trashing the US. ” Were these apologies – or even apologetic? “The United States will be willing to acknowledge past errors where those errors have been made. ” “That’s why I can stand here today and say without equivocation or exception that the United States of America does not and will not torture. ” These are the only “apologies” that my partner was able to turn up in his research on the topic that might have occurred over the course of this tour that was supposed to be saturated with humiliating apologies. I maintain that, even if these were actual apologies – they do not occur often enough, and are not bootlicking enough, to have earned the name “apology tour. ” But were these even apologies at all? I cannot present the entire "past errors" statement in its full context here, due to character limitations. I have therefore offered it in the comments section, and have linked to the full remarks. [1] If the “past errors” comment is read in context, we see that there was never any attempt to offer “regret;” the statement is obviously a criticism of a Latin American tendency to "blame America" for entrenched Latin poverty. Here is a better view of the statement – the context is visibly not that of an apology: “…we can't blame the United States for every problem that arises in the hemisphere. That's part of the bargain. That's part of the change that has to take place. That's the old way, and we need a new way. “The United States will be willing to acknowledge past errors where those errors have been made. We will be partners in helping to alleviate poverty. But the American people have to get some positive reinforcement if they are to be engaged in the efforts to lift other countries out of the poverty that they're experiencing. ” Far from an “apology,” this statement is a criticism of Latin America’s tendency to “blame the United States for every problem that arises in the hemisphere. ” With select words taken out of context, it is made to appear that Obama was “trashing” America – but he was not. Likewise, the statement that the “US does not and will not torture” is a statement of intent: we will not torture. It is not an apology. As these are the only examples that my partner was able to produce before enter the "no new arguments" section, the debate is largely settled: he has failed to offer convincing facts and logic to support his premise. Specific Rebuttals: With some space left, I can address a few of the claims that were made during the course of the discussion. As I do this, I should point out that the bulk of the argument presented by my partner “assumed the premise” rather than proved the premise. In other words, most of his arguments depended on the premise being true in the first place. A textbook example of this fallacy might ask a man who has been accused of spousal abuse “how often he beats his wife. ” Obviously, he would have to beat his wife in the first place for the question to even be relevant. My partner repeats this fallacy throughout his argumentation. A few examples: “…do critics of apology tour insist it should be called the “confession tour”? This disrespectful and condescending comment requires that the "apology tour" actually resembles his characterization. “President Obama's litany of criticisms of his country may or may not be true” My partner never revealed the “litany of criticisms” the President allegedly made towards his country. “When Obama trashed the U. S…” No examples of him “trashing the US” were ever provided. ”…trashing past policies with denunciation of their immorality is not common. ” We see the pattern. My partner skips the necessary step of demonstrating his premise, in favor of simply assuming that it is universally held as true, and then condemning the President for actions that he never demonstrated to have occurred. Here, he gives no evidence that the President ever trashed past policies with denunciations of their immorality. He simply states that this would be a bad thing if it were to have happened. Another line of reasoning is also a fallacy: I cited the research done by Politifact, because that website had open links to all of the relevant parts of our discussion. The website has all of the speeches, counter arguments, and logic behind the “Pants on Fire” ruling that the project awarded the statement that we are analyzing today. “Shoot the messenger but the message survives;” this is an old fallacy, attacking the person making the argument rather than the argument itself. Since he dedicated no character space to refuting the argument that Politifact was making, my partner made the mistake of allowing the Politifact argument itself to pass uncontested. By not answering the argument, he "dropped" a key position: that no apology tour occurred, according to fact-checkers. The ruling was also repeated by almost every major media outlet. A Google search will quickly demonstrate this. Considering all of this, we must have a large number of apologies in order to call these speeches an “apology tour. ” Since we lack any obvious apologies at all, the term cannot be used with credibility. [1]Full Remarks of the “Past errors” statement: . http://www.whitehouse.gov......