FOX News
[Rolling Stone's] recent piece claims that the Trump White House was rife with drug use. The headline reads "Trump's White House was 'Awash in Speed' -- and Xanax," essentially saying that Trump's White House is no different than the Rolling Stone offices. But here's what's weird. What led the rag to look into this was a report released in January by the Defense Department... Talk about proof of a deep state. That info came from the Defense Department before an election.
The author dismisses the Rolling Stone report by attacking the magazine itself, casting its stance as hypocritical about casual drug use rather than addressing concerns over improper distribution of controlled substances, and making unsubstantiated claims that drug use is widespread in the media to falsely equate it with the allegations against the Trump administration.
1. tu quoque • The author criticizes Rolling Stone for perceived hypocrisy:
So now, Rolling Stone, after decades of glorifying casual drug use, is worried about the misuse of stimulants. Do they not remember who ran Rolling Stone? Hell a 2017 bio details how coke was everywhere in the office.
...But forget Rolling Stone's past. What about the media's present? Do the two dimwits who wrote this dreck realize that they just described the drugs that fuel their entire profession? Xanax and Adderall are so entrenched in the information industry, they drug test you to make sure you're on them.
This suggests Rolling Stone's position is invalid because it contradicts their past and/or current behavior, rather than addressing the current issue directly. Any hypocrisy (real or imagined) on the part of Rolling Stone has no bearing on the validity of drug abuse allegations in the Trump White House.
In this same passage there is also a bit of the two wrongs make a right fallacy, whereby the author implies that the supposed widespread use of certain drugs in the media makes it less serious for those drugs to have been used in the White House. The problem with this is that any abuse in the media would not be an excuse for abuse among White House staff.
2. red herring • In discussing the Defense Department's report on which the Rolling Stone piece was based, the author introduces an unrelated issue:
They left billions of dollars in military equipment in Afghanistan, and they're worried about some Ambien use by some flack in the West Wing. And they're concerned that a White House staffer copped a Xanax four years ago. Don't you have better things to do?
This shift to the topic of military equipment in Afghanistan serves to distract from the main argument regarding drug misuse in the White House. That the Defense Department has other very important work around the world does not mean it is not worth their time to evaluate possible drug abuse in the White House.
3. abusive ad hominem • The author repeatedly employes personal insults to persuade his audience to dismiss the Rolling Stone piece, saying the magazine "sucks" and is "ossified", and that the piece he is responding to is "dreck" written by "two dimwits". Personal attacks generally have no relevance to the truth or falsehood of assertions and arguments of the party being insulted.
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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