In its own words: "While run-on sentences, comma splices, split infinitives, and other such grammatical minutiae may rarely make appearances in the best of our nation’s dailies and weeklies, and a small but growing class of press watchdogs help to correct errors of fact (pointing out bias, factual omissions, and distortions), a more perilous corruption lurks under the clean surface of the printed page: specious reasoning." ... "Our contemporary political discourse is, to put it bluntly, a mess. As a population we simply are not trained in the basic logical, rhetorical, and analytic tools necessary to navigate the swamp of contemporary politics." ... "Logical analysis should be a first line of defense against the hijacking of our political discourse by cynical manipulators. Even without knowing the truth of the premises of an argument, one can determine whether or not the conclusion is justified by these premises. Sadly, as we will have ample opportunity to show in detail, many editorialists cannot even pass such a basic and fundamental test. This transforms their editorials from opinions that are worth taking seriously into mere nonsense and empty assertions. As we say, we are speaking 'validity to power' — not truth as the phrase usually runs, but validity."