Thermostat Hypocrisy
h/t Instapundit (who used this phrase in a post)

To the left is an image of a White House meeting that took place Jan 27 or 28. The President and two others have removed their suit jacket.

As reported by the NY Times (who is also responsible for the image),
"... President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat."

An Obama advisor said, " “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

Let's ignore the fact that Obama hasn't lived in Hawaii for many years (although he has vacationed there).

Here is an Obama statement from the campaign,

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

Here is an Obama statement about the weather and D.C. area school closings (Jan 28 2009),

""My children's school was canceled today," Obama said, speaking to reporters before a meeting with business leaders. "Because of what? Some ice? . . . We're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness (this contradicts the "Hawaii" defense by the way) to this town."

He clearly is doing that (raising the thermostat to 'orchid temperature' in the winter) which he says we "can't" (actually he should have said, "shouldn't" in that quote).

Hypocrisy but not very serious.

Boston Herald Says Barney Frank is a Hypocrite

Well the opinion piece by staff of the Boston Herald is short enough to quote in its entirety,

"Barney Frank’s hypocrisy

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Saturday, January 24, 2009 -

Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork - except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places.

One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston - a bank that had already been accused of “unsafe and unsound banking practices.” Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for “excessive” pay that included a Porsche.

Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank’s bailout application.

“I believe it would have been a very big mistake to put the only black bank (in Massachusetts) out of business,” Frank said. Besides, he insists, “It was a case of the federal government causing the problem.”

Causing the bad loans OneUnited made? Or would that go back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Frank so staunchly defended earlier on?

Frank has never failed to amaze us with his ability to defend the indefensible and to staunchly uphold the double standard. It’s his special talent."

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It may be that the staff of the Boston Herald knows a lot of what Barney Frank (that's him in the image) has said in the past but I certainly don't. I don't think most of the readers of the paper do either. In any case I haven't a clue as to what Barney Frank said that makes his actions in greasing the skids to get a home town bank bailed out classified as hypocrisy. Personally, I think the staff should have entitled their piece, "Barney Frank's Buddies Get $". If those buddies were big time contributors to the Barney Frank campaign fund also, that would be interesting from a legal standpoint. However, as to hypocrisy--- I can't see it.

Comment: Is CIA Director Nominee a Hypocrite?

Thus reads the title of a posting at a site called "Intelligence News."

This has to do with the practice of rendition, in which the US essentially kidnaps someone and delivers him to some other country for interrogation.

There is no doubt that this practice existed during the Clinton Administration and that Leon Panetta (image on the left, the nominee for CIA Director) knew about it. There is also no doubt that, in the months following the 9-11 atrocity, the US did more of it than it had under the Clinton Administration.

The posting actually acknowledges the fact that Panetta might have changed his mind about the legality or morality of the practice or might have an idea that under some sets of circumstances, the practice of rendition is OK and under other circumstances it is not OK. In the middle of this analysis the post says the following,

"...Leo Panetta’s purported role in the practice of extraordinary rendition during Bill Clinton’s Presidency does not automatically render hypocritical his stated condemnation of torture."

I certainly agree with this. Its far too complicated to make a definitive statement about hypocrisy.

Accusing Itself of Hypothetical Hypocrisy

Reporting on a tax problem of the nominee for US Secretary of the Treasury, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said,


"... Obama's staff told senators about the tax problems [failure to pay taxes on a reimbursement for taxes that he hadn't paid] on Dec. 5. We should have been clued in, say, Dec. 6. It should not come up hours before a Senate confirmation hearing -- not when it's clear that transparency is supposed to be the standard for this new administration. We can only imagine what we would have said had Geithner been a Bush appointee..."

This says to me that the newspaper admits (or possibly brags) that it would criticize a Republican (or Bush Administration) action far more harshly than it would the same action by a Democrat (or future Obama Administration).

Of course, this is a hypothetical case since no one nominated by Bush committed a tax violation similar to the one committed.