![]() Though his response might be maybe tangentially related, it doesn’t answer the question at all and simply provides a distraction from the issue. In the example, Senator Smith is challenged to comment on a piece of legislation, and instead responds with a tangent about working for his constituents and bipartisanship. Senator Smith: I work tirelessly for my constituents and have a reputation of being able to reach across the aisle to my colleagues on the other side of the political fence, and I’ll continue to work for my constituents in the future. Can you comment on why that might be the case? Reporter: Senator Smith, your signature legislation doesn’t appear to have had any impact on unemployment despite that being the goal. So, what’s that got to do with a red herring? The fallacy in question is a case in which one party attempts to divert attention from the real issue by presenting information that is irrelevant or only tenuously related to the real issue. ![]() And then there’s the Chewbacca Defense (more about that later you don’t really expect me to leave a Star Wars reference unexplained, do you?). Originally, before red herring became the popular term for it, the fallacy was known as ignoratio elenchi, or irrelevant conclusion. The term originates with an 1807 story published in Political Register by William Cobbett, a British journalist and politician, in which a smoked fish is used to distract hounds from chasing a rabbit.
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