Evading the Issue – avoiding a direct answer to a question, or offering vaguely worded replies to tough questions, in an attempt to cover something up.
 

“To evade” means “to avoid.”  If people are unwilling to confront the hard issues that are related to their claims, they may attempt to evade the issue.  People who avoid direct questions (or who offer vaguely-worded replies to tough questions) are usually trying to cover something up.  The audience will assume that the speaker is hiding something if he evades his responsibilities to answer his detractors.

Of course, a world leader may not be willing to explain the details of a military campaign or a trade agreement in the works for security reasons, but after the security issues dissipate, he will again be confronted with the same questions.  Although it is unjust to assume that a person is not telling us the truth, the impression of falsehood carries with it a heavy emotional charge that the public cannot easily ignore.
 

EXAMPLE 1

President Bill Clinton has mastered the art of evading the issue in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  When initially asked of his alleged affairs with her, he responded in several ways: “I don’t know anything about that,” “You’ll have to ask my attorney,” and “Next question.”  Later, he simply lied: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”

Evading the issue weakens the overall argument, since the speaker offers no evidence to prove his points, even though we have just directly asked him for some.  This makes a listener question whether or not the speaker is trustworthy.  Clinton also used equivocation to throw off the journalists (what was Clinton’s definition of “that” and “sexual” when he uttered these statements?) as well as distortion and falsification.

 
EXAMPLE 2

A defendant pleads: “Your Honor, I plead the 5th [Amendment to the Constitution].”

Every American is granted the right to not incriminate himself in a court of law.  In other words, nobody will ever force an American citizen to make public comments that are negative about himself.  If a citizen chooses to speak, he can clarify his innocence (or guilt) rather than leaving that decision in the minds of a jury or judge.
 

CAUTION!

“Pleading the Fifth,” however, implies guilt in many people’s eyes, including those in the jury box.  Why would someone NOT speak up for himself if he were truly innocent?  These questions were frequently asked during the O.J. Simpson trial: O.J. never took the witness stand to defend himself or to implicate another suspect.  Why not?  The mother of his children was murdered, he is the sole suspect, and he has nothing to say?  Nobody knows the truth but O.J.