Carlos Mariscal, a graduate student at Duke, wrote last Friday:

While I was watching the convention this week (and last week as well, actually), it astounded me at how often the speakers would resort to obvious logical fallacies.  I counted five false dichotomies and four straw men within the Sarah Palin speech alone.  As a result, I’ve decided to throw a ‘Spot the Logical Fallacy’ party during the first debate September 26.  It occurs to me that this would be a good way of showing the use of philosophical training and a fun way to reach out to the community.  So, I’d like to throw the idea out to the Internet in the hopes that a few philosophy departments, clubs, or meet up groups will also decide to throw parties of their own.

It should be a busy and festive event, given the relative role of rhetoric vs. logic in political debates!