“Not Ted Kennedy’s seat”
Scott Brown’s rejoinder to David Gergen was not only a good zinger, but also an excellent example of arguing from definitions instead of circumstances. Implicit in Gergen’s question was the premise that because of the circumstances, Ted Kennedy having been a Massachusetts senator for nearly five decades, that the Democrats were somehow entitled to that seat. Scott Brown properly pointed out that those circumstances in no way affected the Constitution’s definition of “senator.”
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