Agreed, I shared this article link yesterday in a comment on the Panera bread disclosures. I’m more of the school of thought that this is a technique that helps when you have no intention of fixing the root cause not neccesarily maintaining public image.

Yes now that there's a name for it, I can see it everywhere.

For example (thankfully the number of people that I know who are climate change skeptics has dwindled hugely in the last year or two):

- the world isn't warming at all

- anyway if it is warming, it's not because of human activities

- and even if it's caused by human activities, its effects will minor

- and even it it's happening, and it's caused by human activities and its effects are going to be serious, it's too expensive to do anything about it.

It isn't necessarily arguing in bad faith. It's simply an argumentation technique, commonly used in high stake situations. My client can't have killed that person, because they were 1000 miles away. But even if that weren't the case, they have no motive. But even if they had a motive, they have no weapon. But even if they have the weapon and the motive, they have strong personal beliefs against violence.

For the sake of argument, assume all those things are true. That's a perfectly reasonable argument to use in a court situation. When there's going to be a final verdict, from which appeal is impossible or very expensive, you are an idiot if you only bring up the fact they were a 1000 miles away. You marshal every argument you possibly can. This isn't a dialog; you don't get a (cheap) response once the verdict is in.

I think this is a poor essay, blaming a standard argumentation technique for the poor behavior of certain industries. The problem isn't the four dog defense, the problem is the poor behavior of certain industries. I mean, remove the defense from those industries and what would change? Basically nothing; one would have to be some sort of very specific meta-contrarian cynic to claim otherwise. Clearly it's not the real problem.

Also, it's not the "Doggy-Dog World of Politicians"... it's the "Dog-Eat-Dog World of Politicians". I mention this because frankly it struck me as on par with the quality of the rest of the essay. Edit: In fact, on reflection, I've flagged it. It hasn't got much redeeming value.