Chicago- President and Mrs.Obama's Logical Fallacies

This address was first analyzed by Brandon.

On October 2, 2009, President and Mrs.Obama gave an address to the International Olympic Committee. In both of their speeches, they attempt to use ethos, pathos, and logos to make their arguments more persuasive. However, some logical fallacies are present.

The first logical fallacy I came across is in Mrs. Obama's speech. She discusses how her dad had a great influence on her views about sports, rules, honor, dignity, and fair play. She uses pathos by describing her father's illness and how he still taught her and others a great deal of life lessons. Finally, she discusses how it is important to carry on the "lasting legacy" to inspire this generation "to bring us together; to usher in a new era of international engagement" (par. 14).

This argument also uses logos because she discusses this common belief/change that many people desire to see in the world. However, she uses a "red herring." Mrs. Obama gives this example about her father and how he affected her life, but ultimately, she does not give effective evidence as to how Chicago can accommodate the Olympics. She tells a story that really isn't relevant to the subject at hand.

Mrs. Obama's argument ends and President Barack Obama brings better arguments to table. In all honesty, without President Obama's better arguments, I would find Mrs.Obama's speech quite pointless.

President Obama's speech also contains a few logical fallacies. The first is the presence of "ad populum," and more specifically, "the appeal to traditional wisdom" and "the appeal to provincialism." Chicago claims to be "a city that works -- from its first World's Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup [they] hosted in the nineties, [they] know how to put on big events." President Obama explains that big events have occurred in Chicago before and therefore, the Olympics should come (appeal to traditional wisdom). Also, his explanation also implies that since they know how to run large events, Chicago is "automatically superior to the unfamiliar" (W & R, p. 70, par. 1). If they have already experienced putting on World events and were successful, who is to say another city that has not previously hosted such an event is incapable of doing so. Why not let other great cities experience this type of recognition that Chicago has already experienced.

Lastly, President Barack Obama said, "people from every corner of the world gathered...in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. Presidential election. Their interest wasn't about [him] as an individual. Rather, it was rooted in the belief that America's experiment in democracy still speaks to a set of universal aspirations and ideals...[that] diversity could be a source of strength, a cause for celebration." The logical fallacy here is that the President is making a hasty generalization. There may have been many who were watching the Presidential election for that very reason. However, there must have been many who were watching it for other reasons (for example, to watch President Obama as an individual). It is faulty to believe that all who were watching were there to see how the "universal aspirations and ideals" are coming to a reality.

There were many good points in President and Mrs. Obama's speeches, such as history, culture, character, and diversity. However, with these logical fallacies in place, their speeches lose the power that they really could establish.