content: John C Dvorak calls the technique a "whiplash" and it's extremely common in main stream media. The deliberate conflation of two otherwise unrelated topics is most seen when playing a "quote" that appears on the surface to support what the talking head just asserted, when in fact has nothing to do with the assertion.    I've seen this most used when trying to convince the listener that someone has criticized the president, but the sound bite is not actually connected to the story at all.