Phenol is trying to rationalize away what is actually the case, and it’s showing. Badly.

http://upwr.me/MittFlip

A) EVERYTHING would have to be labeled to say what each and everything was. (E.g., “This is a comment about Phenol’s statement above, which MAY be a comment, but I don’t actually know, because he never labeled it.”)

B) Phenol does not know what a Venn diagram implies. (You don’t have to know what it’s called, but I’m pretty sure that most of us learned what one means at some point during elementary or middle school. It’s about as basic a concept as the hydrologic cycle.)

C) Phenol is a literalist that requires constant affirmation of an absolutist universe in which things are exactly what they are said to be. (IOW, Phenol wouldn’t understand Stroudus’ evocation of The Treachery of Images (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images )

OR

D) Phenol does know what a Venn diagram implies (even if he – for some reason – never knew what it was called), but he’s finding rationalizations to get “his side” out of the very obvious hole that he (perhaps only subconsciously) realizes exists in this particular issue.

I’m going to be generous to Phenol’s intellect and say that it’s D: he’s trying to rationalize away something that he recognizes to be a problem but cannot actually admit to being a problem. (Or maybe he does admit to it being a problem, but is trying to find a way to lie about it, diminish its significance, or change the narrative so that he will feel vindicated.) Heck, rationalization the most common fault of human intellect, and it’s one fault that tends to become more pervasive among people who are trained at rational thought.

Therefore, I doubt that Phenol’s so moronic as to really believe that not labeling it as a Venn diagram means that it isn’t (condition A). I also doubt that Phenol is so poorly learned that he has never encountered a Venn diagram, with or without it actually being called a “Venn diagram” (condition B). I finally doubt that Phenol requires a literalist affirmation of everything (condition C), since it is almost assuredly true that “Phenol” is merely a pseudonym.

However now that Phenol has had the basic understanding of Venn diagrams explained to him, as well as the widespread knowledge of how a Venn diagram functions (and how the Romney diagrams are therefore Venn diagrams, regardless of the lack of a label), while also hopefully understanding that implicit knowledge is held by many more people than what might be lurking within his own cranium, one wonders whether Phenol will be able to reconcile himself to the fact that he’s just trying to rationalize away a rather banal point about a multi-millionaire, privately educated, two-time Harvard graduate, former state governor, financially successful businessman candidate’s election team’s graphics department (as well as all the layers of management that had to approve of the graphics) being so poorly able to recognize incorrectly constructed Venn diagram as BEING incorrectly constructed and yet going ahead with their launch.

It’s not such a big problem. Romney’s election team made a visual gaffe. Obama’s team will likely also make a gaffe with their visuals. (Some say that they already did with their “Life of Julia” was such a gaffe.) Trying to get your mind to do the mental rationalization gymnastics that will turn this from a gaffe into not-a-gaffe just point the spotlight on your mental rationalization gymnastics.

The other person failed to grasp a concept most middle schoolers have mastered, and even if he was never shown or even glanced at these before sending them out, he entrusts others who have failed to grasp basic concepts necessary to do their jobs with making important decisions with absolutely no oversight by himself or any other qualified individual.

Who do YOU think is more trustworthy in the role of the most powerful man in the world?

Isn’t that the essence of politics?

So, scrolling up to the final diagram, you are saying that $500 billion dollars in deficit spending is an “outcome of his stated promise” (which I can agree with), but the projected FY 2012 deficit of $1.2 trillion dollars is NOT an “outcome of his stated promise”? Sorry, I can’t agree there. 

Both of those statements are outcomes of the president’s actions and promises, and as such both should be within the blue circle, as opposed to this Venn diagram that shows that cutting the deficit in half and $500 billion dollars in deficit spending are somehow NOT mutually exclusive, while somehow the red and blue areas are mutually exclusive.