Friday, May 6, 2011




Analysis: I think that O’ Rielly does a wonderful job of Questioning Donald Trump in this particular interview. In my opinion he does a very thorough job of seeking Trump’s true interest and importance of this issue. The part of this argument that I would like to focus on occurs at the time of 0:19-1:30. Trump tries to discredit birth announcements,

From the Transcript:
Bill O’Reilly: we very early on did an investigation about Barack Obama’s birth certificate and factor found out that there were two announcements the week he was born. In both Honolulu newspapers saying that he was born. Okay. That is impossible to make happen if he had not been born in the hospital. So I just put the issue to bed. I said he was born in Honolulu the two newspaper documented it.
{more illustration as to why O’Rielly dismissed the issue}
Trump: Bill I grew up with wall street geniuses what they do in terms of fraud and how they change documents and I’ll tell you something if you notice those dates were three days later and here’s what I ask people
Trump: Who puts birth announcements in the newspaper?..... Here are two poor people a man and a woman with no money to have a baby… there’s announcements in the newspaper?
O’Rielly: The grandparents did it.
Trump: Nelson Rockefeller doesn’t put announcements in the newspaper.
O’Rielly: Sure there are Birth annocements all the time
Trump: I’ve never seen one
O’Rielly: Really
Trump: No
O’Rielly: They’re common

Summary; Bill O’Rielly conducted an early investigation finding supporting evidence that Barack Obama had to have been born in the United States. The two newspaper announcements published in the newspaper just three days after his birth caused O’Rielly to dismiss the notion that he may not have been born in the U.S: thus stating that it would have been impossible for him to have been born anywhere other than in the United States. Trump automatically tries to discredit the announcements. Trump does not produce hard evidence that President Barack Obama is not a citizen. He only makes accusations as to why there is a serious doubt for him that the President is a citizen but never specifically says Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Formalizing the argument:
P1. Barack’s parents were poor and couldn’t put their announcements in the news papter.
P2. His grandparents did it, but Nelson Rockefeller didn’t put announcements in the news paper.
P3. I never seen a birth announcement
P4 President Barack Obama’s birth announcements are invalid
C. So therefore all birth announcements are invalid including President Barack Obama’s.

For the portion of the argument I chose I wanted to pinpoint the fact that Trump wants to discredit the birth announcements in both Honolulu newspapers because he claims that Barack Obama’s parents could not have put his birth announcements in the paper; Reason being because they were poor and that his grandparents couldn’t have had a reason to put them in the paper comparing them to Nelson Rockefeller (stating that he never put birth announcements in the newspaper). I feel that he was insinuating that because that people with money could not have put them in there either. Finally I also thought that when he was saying he has never seen a birth announcement so they don’t exist and therefore President Barack Obama’s birth announcements could not have been true.
This is a case of a Hasty Generalization Fallacy. Donald Trump is drawing a general conclusion about not only President Barack Obama’s birth announcements but all birth announcements. His conclusion says that Barack Obamas birth announcements are not valid and for that matter no birth announcements don’t exist because he has never seen one (and he does not understand why people put them in the newspaper).>


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