'An Obese Straw Man'

We are avid readers of James Taranto's Best of the Web column at WSJ.com. In one of his latest columns, Taranto critiques Mark Bittman's all-too-predictable defense of the NYC Big Gulp ban:

"Mark Bittman, a silly and pretentious chap who writes about food for the New York Times, weighs in with a blog post in defense of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's widely mocked proposed ban on large sodas: 'If that's nannying, I'm all for it. Here's the question: Who do you want taking care of your kids while you're not looking--governments interested in improving public health, or corporations interested in improving the bottom line at the expense of same?

'There is a maddeningly false choice being put forth by the staunchest critics of this plan: either the government tells us what we can and cannot eat and drink, or we exercise our unbridled freedom in making those decisions for ourselves.'

"Notice how in the paragraph immediately preceding his complaint about 'a maddeningly false choice,' he puts forth exactly such a false choice." We also notice how Bittman assumes Big Business has the worst motives while Big Government has the best motives. Arguments like this reveal the fascist undertones of phrases like "public health."