When politicians describe their opponents' positions, they typically make those positions seem implausible and unattractive  In contrast, scholars try to make opposing positions seem as plausible and attractive as possible  Doing so makes their arguments against those positions more persuasive to their professional colleagues
Politicians should take note: they could persuade more voters with their arguments if they simply followed the scholars in charitably formulating their opponents' positions
fails to account for the difficulty of coming up with charitable formulations of positions to which one is opposed