What’s Strawman mean?
It means misrepresenting your opponent’s claims or arguments, then attacking those instead of what they actually said.
Nice to see rent-a-hack Parsons, in so many ways the equal of his ex-wife, spouting ludicruous, spurious invective.
straw man
n.
A person who is set up as cover or a front for a questionable enterprise.
An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
A bundle of straw made into the likeness of a man and often used as a scarecrow.
It’s easy to say “I don’t hate Americans, just the government.” and attempt to cover yourself for vastly over-genaralitions with inflamatory comments. The US government is seen by many, not as as a controling body or an independant entity in and of itself. It is a representative government that many, as seen abundantly today, that is protested against or supported for the actions it takes in our name.
When Canadian MP Carolyn Parrish says things like “I hate those bastards” about Americans in general and then appologizes by focising their hate on our representatives, does not salve the anger. At least not to the aware.
Let’s not get into the hypocracies of reightious anger or “you do it too” kind of arguement. Two wrongs do not make a right is a very popular quote here. And asserting that no one has a legitimate right to feel that way just because of *your[/i strawman is redundant and rediculous.
And talking about strawmen;
The writer has said not one word about Iraq, yet many people have inflicted it upon his writing and insinuating that is what he meant. When actually he had stated over and over that he was fooucsing on the Anti-American surge since 9-11 and those that justify 9-11 towards hatred of the US. If you want to blame all anti-American hatred at just one thing like Iraq, you are over-genralizing the situation yourself.
Be careful when you complain about generalizations, you do not fall into that trap yourself.
I don’t hate the American government. I think it’s misguided. I think it’s operating in a way which is incompatible with a global way of thinking. I think that Bush is servering the goodwill that kept people supporting the US all through the dangerous years of McCarthy and Kissinger when we weren’t sure how the US would turn out.
I’ve heard criticism of the current Administration from Americans that far outweighs anything you’ll get from this side of the pond. I also heard criticism of the previous administration that seemed to blame it for everything that went wrong in the whole world.
Is the problem, perhaps, the current administration’s obsession with the fact that you cannot criticise it without being against it, and the fact that some people are buying it? If you believe that if someone cannot criticise your actions without criticising you, if you do something dumb you’ll suddenly find that everyone is out to get you, and if they’re out to get you, why would you listen to their advice? Thus, the absolute importance of removing terms like “anti-American” from arguments over any issue, no matter how much you might feel they are correct. Beat your opponents on their arguments, not on any possible prejudices they might have.
As a possible aside regarding Anti-Americanism itself:
Is the problem, perhaps, as one of my friends suggested in her blog, that while people are fine with individual Americans, the whole, America, tends to grate on European sensibilities, just as “Europe” tends to piss off people in the States? It could be put down to jealousy or “tall poppy,” but it could also be put down to differing cultural mindsets. Things which “sell well” in America tend to be seen differently in Europe, and vice versa. When “America”, the amorphous entity, sells itself to Europe or Africa or the Middle East, it tends to act as if everyone in the world understands exactly where it’s coming from, and gets upset when they judge America by their own standards and they fall short. Given that “subtlety” isn’t something that the amorphous imaginary American whole is famous for outside of its borders, this could well be the case.
I’ve noticed a certain “Anti-European” tendency in certain parts of the American press of late. Suffice to say, I don’t bring this up much. I’m just saying, if I wanted to, I could.
Isn’t this a blend of appeal to popularity and appeal to authority? 
I pro-invasion, and I agree with McDuff that it was a poorly argued editorial, and that there is no excuse for that.
Best I can see is that The Mirror is still trying to prove it’s new ‘serious’ newspaper credentials to the populist masses. Using a celebrity ‘name’ like Parsons has to be an absurd mistake Piers Morgan (Ed) won’t repeat. Still, they pay Christopher Hitchens so Morgan can’t be entirely bad.
Parsons is an old-style media hack without political instinct or insight. About as weighty as Armstrong on the moon. IMHO, his opinion piece is embarrassing, especially as he doesn’t need the money. He should return to writing predictable, plodding cliché driven pot boilers.
… it’s sad, really. Burchill’s also lost the plot, except to an even greater degree.