On second thought, the Scarecrow of Oz was a straw man, wasn't he?

Just the other day I was asked this question:

“Who would you use as a straw man if Dan Coffey weren’t around?”

My answer was Steve Price. Actually, I would cherish the opportunity to refrain from exposing the inadequacies and other local nonentities, but at root, the question itself is invalid.

Wikipedia defines a straw man as follows:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position). A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it carries little or no real evidential weight, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it. Such a target is, naturally, immobile and does not fight back, and is not as realistic to test skill against compared to a live and armed opponent.

It isn’t necessary to misrepresent Coffey’s or Price’s arguments in such a manner, because their actual views are easy to refute. If anything, it's far less a case of straw men as it is fish in a barrel.

I'm perfectly content to permit posterity to be the judge. In a few years, read back over the hundreds of postings herein, and tally the scorecard.

But thanks for asking.