What logical fallacy or rhetorical device is this? If A is stated and B,C,D not mentioned, A is false.?

Question

Example: Person 1 says A = "I'm concerned about forest fires, I believe more attention should be paid them.". Person 2 says that since Person 2 did not also mention B,C,D as in "I'm concerned about fires caused by kids playing with matches." (add in other examples) that they then don't care about B,C,D and that their original statement about A is stupid and false.

This is used as a distraction and in an attempt to make the discussion go off track. My guess is that this employs a logical fallacy or two. Or that there is some term for what is being done and a fuller explanation. Anyone able to help me out with this? I haven't found the answer yet in looking through logical fallacies. One idea is that perhaps the answer is in classic debate rules, as in -what not to do-.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is called dissembling, distraction, and/or discrediting. It is used in extensively in debate, legal arguments, and political campaigns. It is based on the fallacious inference that if you can get an audience to accept that your opponent has neglected something, your opponent therefore prevaricates about everything. Basically it's a perversion of the syllogism.