news michael cohens verbal somersault ‘i lied but im not a liar translated by a rhetoric expert march 19 2019 michael cohens verbal somersault ‘i lied but im not a liar translated by a rhetoric expert michael cohen wants you to know that throwing your kid a ball doesn't make you a red sox pitcher so he told lies he says but that doesn't make him a liar a rhetoric scholar dissects his argument cohen is sworn in to testify before the house committee on oversight and reform reuters/jonathan ernst jennifer mercieca texas a&m university michael cohen who admits to lying also says hes not a liar can we separate what someone does from who they are cohen thinks we should and it would help us to understand both him and trump better cohen donald trumps former personal attorney and fixer testified before congress about his former client wednesday cohen claimed that he wanted to correct the record about his previous testimony correcting the record now cohen hoped would prove to the nation that lying was what cohen did but not who he is i have lied but i am not a liar said cohen i have done bad things but i am not a bad man he assured congress at issue in cohens testimony therefore were the points of stasis a greek term used here to mean points of argument those stases centered on fact and quality: what happened and how should we judge it as a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and argumentation who is finishing a book about trumps presidential campaign i paid close attention to how cohen explained his actions on trumps behalf to congress cohen relied on the argumentative strategy of dissociation – its not this its that – to carefully separate his actions from his essence and trumps actions from trumps essence exonerate cohen implicate trump according to this strategy a person who lies is not necessarily a liar; a person who does bad things is not necessarily a bad person the strategy invites audiences to separate the elements of an apparent unity – the person who does the thing is the thing – so that each can be judged separately by doing this cohen attempted to exonerate himself and implicate trump in several fraudulent schemes and attempted to define trumps essence as a racist a con man and a cheat trump called cohen a liar when he tweeted – and then retweeted while cohen was testifying – that cohen was disbarred for lying and fraud and that he lied again in his testimony cohen is a liar who lied it is his essence claimed trump likewise republican lawmakers who questioned him rejected cohens attempt to dissociate actions from essence if youve lied then you are a liar georgia rep jody hice told cohen in one of the more heated exchanges of the testimony cohens testimony wasnt just about his own essence it was also about trumps essence mr trump is an enigma testified cohen he is complicated as am i he has both good and bad as do we all cohen explained to congress that trumps complicated nature like his own could best be understood by separating trumps actions from his essence according to cohen trumps actions made him appear to be something that he is not like the trump brands signature gilding what was manifest on the outside was not what was on the inside trumps exterior may glitter with gold but according to cohen trump does not have a heart of gold the bad far outweighs the good said cohen trump is capable of behaving kindly but he is not kind he is capable of committing acts of generosity but he is not generous he is capable of being loyal but he is fundamentally disloyal between action and essence a central issue of cohens testimony was about the distinction between appearance and reality between his and trumps actions and their respective essences cohen has invited the nation to render two separate judgments about himself and about trump the nation ought to render opposite judgments argued cohen but both cases ought to be decided based upon a persons essential character to make sense of cohens testimony the fundamental question is this: how should the actions of people like trump and cohen be judged is a person a liar because they lie is a person kind because they appear to be kind should we dissociate the quality of the person from their actions the fate of the nation may hang on its citizens ability to judge correctly mr cohen you call mr trump a cheat kentucky rep james comer said to cohen during the testimony what would you call yourself comer asked cohen answered: a fool was cohen a fool – or did he merely act foolishly jennifer mercieca associate professor of communication texas a&m university this article is republished from the conversation under a creative commons license read the original article dept news faculty research in he news mercieca