Charging one’s opponents with bad faith is the ultimate political ad hominem. It obviates argument, fact, logic, history.Let's start with the fact that this is an inaccurate description of "ad hominem." Wikipedia recognizes several kinds of argumentum ad hominem: the abusive, in which you attack Person X's character to undermine a point Person X is making; the circumstantial, in which you argue that Person Y's position and circumstances automatically incline them to make the point they are making, meaning that it carries less weight; and the "tu quoque," which in English I think would be rendered "you're one to talk," meaning that Person Z has done a thing that they say is bad.
Obama is doing none of these things. He is claiming that the actions Republicans have taken, fighting economic stimulus and pushing for short-term fiscal contraction, which most serious economists believe will adversely affect the economy, are not motivated as they claim by a genuine belief that these policies will be good for the nation but by the belief that, by being bad for the nation, they will make Barack Obama's re-election less likely. Obama is not saying, "Republicans are acting in bad faith, therefore we know their policies are bad;" rather, he's saying that "we know the Republicans' policies are bad, therefore we can conclude that they are acting in bad faith." As I just stated that it's not a conclusive logical statement, because the Republicans could just be wrong, but I would claim that there is ample evidence backing the bad-faith conclusion in this particular case.
The slightly informal way the phrase ad hominem is used in politics is just to say that claims that Candidate X has a bad personal character are irrelevant. This may sometimes be true, I'm not sure. But that's a completely inaccurate description of this charge of bad faith. Suppose that a person, or a political party, demonstrates a willingness to tank the U.S. economy in order to secure an electoral victory for itself. Isn't that exactly the kind of thing you want to know about them? It's entirely relevant, even if you take the defensible position that only things that affect policy decisions matter. A tendency, when situated such that deterioration in real-world conditions will improve one's political position, to knowingly promote policies designed to deteriorate real-world conditions has a tremendous impact on the policies a political will try to enact. Right? Obviously? So it's not remotely ad-hominem in the way that phrase gets casually used in politics.
So let's concede that Krauthammer is using the phrase ad hominem incorrectly. What he's really saying, then, is just that a charge of bad faith is a very serious one that, among other things, calls rather distinctly into question the character of the person you accuse of it. That's true. Krauthammer is basically saying that Obama is defaming the Republicans' character, which is something you ought never do. But there's a problem with that: defamation is only defamation if it is factually incorrect!!! If a newspaper prints a gigantic headline that Person X had a torrid extramarital affair with Person Y, Persons X and Y can sue them for libel iff they did not actually have a torrid, extramarital affair with one another (and, under U.S. law, if the newspaper knew that when it printed the headline). Likewise, if I walk into a bar and shout that Person Z killed Person A, Person Z can then sue me for slander iff he did not murder Person A. If X and Y did have their affair, or Z did kill A, then there is no defamation of character, because there is no falsehood. Accusing someone of bad faith when you can't substantiate the charge is indeed a very bad thing to do.
But if your political opponents are acting in bad faith, in a publicly demonstrable fashion, isn't it kind of your patriotic duty to say so? After all, it is presumably a bad thing for the country to have people in positions of power who are prepared to sabotage the nation's well-being just to advance their own political careers. That means that if such people are running for office, it's good for the nation if they lose, and especially if they lose because of their willingness to ruin the economy for personal political profit. Therefore, it is not only acceptable but damn near obligatory for their political opponents to tell people about their opponent's unwillingness to put country ahead of party. So basically, Charles Krauthammer is very, very wrong, on every possible level. But then again, what else is new?
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