Category: 
by Hector N. Fertig
OP, my only objection to your comment was the misnaming of the fallacy as a straw-man. The assertion that someone (even an unnamed someone) actually holds the weakened position is a critical requirement for a straw-man argument. It is not enough that an argument be weak to be a straw-man; behind every straw-man, there must first be a “man”. You give an excellent example of why Obama’s quote does not qualify.
Had Obama stated:
So, one option is to pick dandelions. We say, well, it’s too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can’t afford it. We’ve got this big deficit. Let’s just pick dandelions and hope that fixes the health care system.
it would be clear that this is a red herring and not a straw-man fallacy.
Drudge cuts off Obama’s quote shortly thereafter but the full statement is:
So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it’s too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can’t afford it. We’ve got this big deficit. Let’s just keep the health care system that we’ve got now.
Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything. That’s the wrong option.
I think the right option is to say, where are the game changers, the investments that we can make now that are going to reduce costs, even if they don’t reduce them this year or next year, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we are going to see substantially lower costs.
The right / wrong distinction makes this sound like a dilemma but is it a false dilemma? Is there an option that lies somewhere in between “doing nothing” and “finding game changers … that are going to reduce costs”? Maybe. In my opinion, his language is sufficiently imprecise to pin this fallacy on him. Indeed, introducing market reforms may be one such game changer even though it’s not one that he personally supports! He then goes on to say why he feels his particular game changers will work (including a mis-characterization of the position held by big-Pharma, IMO).
Transcript quoted from: http://www.c-span.org/pdf/obamainterview.pdf
