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I don’t remember much from the one course in logic I took back at Southwest Missouri State, and it probably shows. But I remember loving the class and the subject.

The teacher was an owlish, gangly young professor named Dr. Applebee. He taught us some cool stuff. To this day, I enjoy breaking down people’s arguments — including my own — into major premise, minor premise and conclusion to see if they hold water.

It’s surprising how often they don’t. Our political discussion suffers mightily as a result.

Remember the 1988 vice-presidential debate? Demo-crat Lloyd Bentsen said something to the effect that Republican Dan Quayle was too young and inexperienced to hold high office. Quayle replied that John F. Kennedy was also young and inexperienced when he ran for president. And Bentsen swooped in for the kill with his famous zinger: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

That brought the house down, and Quayle was toast. But, though I was no fan of Quayle, I considered Bentsen’s response infuriatingly unfair and illogical. He “won” on the basis of a cheap shot.

If it had been a formal debate, Bentsen’s argument would have broken down something like this: All people who are young and inexperienced are unqualified to hold high office. (Major premise.) You’re young and inexperienced. (Minor premise.) Therefore, you’re unqualified to hold high office. (Conclusion.)

When Quayle replied by mentioning Kennedy, he wasn’t claiming to be another JFK. What he was doing, though he probably didn’t know it, was trying to poke a hole in Bentsen’s major premise. If you can do that — and all you have to do is point out one case in which the premise doesn’t apply — your opponent’s whole argument collapses.

So in my book, Quayle and not Bentsen deserved to win that point. (Whether Kennedy really was qualified to hold high office is a question for another day.)

The other thing Bentsen was doing on that night — which belatedly brings me to my point — was engaging in something called an argumentum ad hominem, or an ad hominem attack. That’s about the only other thing I remember from my logic class, but it’s something I wish people would pay more attention to in this time of such stridency and incivility in public discourse.

Ad hominem is Latin for “to the man.” It refers to the time-dishonored practice that the dictionary defines as “attacking the character, motives, etc. of an opponent rather than debating the issue on logical grounds.” Don’t know how to prove your opponent wrong? Why even try? Just call him a name.

Neither end of the American political spectrum has a monopoly on name-calling. Those of us who can remember the 1964 presidential campaign witnessed a classic example of it.

Conservative Republican Barry Goldwater raised legitimate questions about the proper role of government. But rather than attempting to rebut his arguments, the Lyndon Johnson campaign found it all too easy to attack Goldwater personally as a dangerous “extremist.” Remember the TV commercial showing a little girl picking petals off a daisy before she was so rudely interrupted by a thermonuclear explosion?

Today, the most glaring examples of the ad hominem thing seem to come not from the left so much as from the right. I’m thinking in particular about the constant trotting-out of the all-purpose label “liberal” to discredit somebody who is arguing on the other side.

You don’t like the way somebody is questioning some policy of the Bush administration, but you don’t want to take the time to address the issues he has raised point by point? No problem. Just call him a “liberal.” The instant application of that dreaded word, apparently, is thought sufficient to neutralize the person — like a quick spray of Mace in the face. Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s just a liberal. And that takes care of that.

I’ll bet the word “liberal” is spoken 20 or 30 times — always with a sneer — in an average three-hour Rush Limbaugh radio program. It is routinely sprinkled liberally (you should pardon the expression) through our letters column.

On the other hand, Al Franken, who will head up a newly launched “liberal talk radio” network, wrote a book called “Rush Lim-baugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.” You don’t suppose that qualifies as ad hominem, do you?

Steve Bouser is editor of The Pilot. Reach him at 693-2470 or sbouser@thepilot.com.