Huppke laments the damage to Biden's legacy from pardoning Hunter

Analyzing the article

USA Today
tu quoque
appeal to emotion
weak man

Our Analysis: 3 Fallacies

In the wake of an election that left many of us wondering if the rule of law means a thing, Biden put pen to paper Sunday and pardoned his son Hunter Biden. He did the thing he promised repeatedly he wouldn't do. And in doing so, he made a mockery of our justice system and soundly sullied his political legacy.

While he makes valid points about the potential impact on public trust when presidents pardon family members and the apparent contradiction with Biden's previous statements, Rex Huppke fails to fully consider the established precedent of controversial presidential pardons or adequately distinguish between the different legal contexts of Hunter Biden's case and Trump's various legal challenges. The emotional appeals and sweeping predictions about Biden's legacy ultimately weaken what could have been a more nuanced critique of the use of presidential pardon power in cases involving family members.

1. appeal to emotion • Huppke attempts to evoke feelings of anger and distrust in the reader by use of loaded language:

At a moment in American history when honesty has taken a merciless beating, President Joe Biden made a liar of himself... ​It's enough to make us feel like the fix is in. Is that really the ending note you wanted your presidency to strike?


The phrase "the fix is in" suggests that the pardon was premeditated or was even part of a larger conspiracy.

2. tu quoque • Huppke condemns Biden's actions by anticipating that Republicans will use the tu quoque fallacy to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy when they criticize Trump for avoiding legal repercussions of his actions:


And you did this while we're sitting around watching Trump's myriad legal cases magically disappear.

​Biden has now made it harder for us to call out Trump's lies


Huppke argues as if a tu quoque from Republicans would now be a valid response, when in fact the tactic is fallacious.

3. weak man •  Huppke reduces complex Republican criticisms of Biden to an oversimplified and exaggerated false dichotomy, making their arguments easier to dismiss by presenting them as absurdly extreme:


Republicans have done everything possible to paint him as either a doddering fool or a global criminal mastermind.


Many Republicans have acknowledged Biden as an accomplished statesman who has suffered cognitive decline in recent years and have based their criticism on the latter condition or on his various policy decisions.




References

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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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