Ronnie Earle and the Slippery Slope

One of the often used argument technique is the "slippery slope," raising the specter of doom and gloom if we start down a particular road. Ronnie Earle gets the award for the most imaginative project of horrible out comes. In his closing argument in the hearing on a motion to remove the appointed judge in Rep. Tom Delay's (R-TX) conspiracy case, because of his donations to Democrat causes, Earle said:

"Danger is that the argument being made by the defendant’s counsel … will turn us into the Shiites and the Kurds and the Sunnis — and will turn us into sectarian mobs — opposing each other because of our political affiliation … there’s no basis for that in the history of our country and we don’t need to start that history today."

"Judge Removed from Delay Case," Fox News, 11/02/05 (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,174129,00.html)

I don't know where to begin - is he on drugs because he thinks that we will become "Shiites and the Kurds and the Sunnis" (presumably meaning that that the nation will split up along ethnic and religious lines) if a judge gets removed form a case because of perceived bias -- a case, by the way, in which the judge in question did not even bother to testify about his bias, presumably because he is biased - or is he being unintentionally hysterical when he suggests, without the hint of irony, that we shouldn't be "opposing each other because of our political affiliation"? Isn't that what this prosecution is all about anyway?

Dennis