Whose Hypocrisy Is Worse

John Dickerson, formerly White House reporter for Time Magazine wrote an opinion piece in Slate, the upshot of which was that a Republican Hypocrisy is worse than Democratic Hypocrisy.

He specifically states that Democrats are hypocrites for endorsing the filibuster when they were a minority and proposing to nullify the filibuster now that they are in power. He specifically states that Republicans are hypocrites for criticizing the earmarks in the stimulus bill while also seeking earmarks from the stimulus bill. He says that the second case of hypocrisy (he calls it policy hypocrisy) is worse than the first case of hypocrisy (he calls that procedure hypocrisy).

Actually, I'm not sure either is hypocrisy (although the first case is closer).

The Democrats embrace of the filibuster was during the appointment of judges (which seems pretty important by the way). Their opposition to filibuster is regarding the health care bill (also important). However, there are two distinctions that Mr. Dickerson does not indulge.

1. Judicial appointments are for life. A health care bill could be amended (at least in theory) by a future Congress. Thus it might be (although I admit its not a great argument) that one may say, "well filibusters are vital on judicial matters but not on other matters". An obvious weakness of this argument is that a complex matter like health care would require enormous effort to amend.

2. Not every Democrat had both the "yeah for filibuster" position before 2006 and the 'boo for filibuster" position. To me, it doesn't make sense to say "Democrats are hypocrites", only "Smith, a Democrat is a hypocrite, or Jones, a democrat is a hypocrite"

Regarding the Republican actions on earmarks, there is a major flaw in Dickerson's logic.

Most Republican Senators and Congressmen who were anti earmark did not say "I oppose all earmarks and will not accept earmarks for my district (or State)". They said, in effect, "I oppose the size of the earmarks" which is quite a different thing. Also, Dickerson says that the Republicans now say "the stimulus didn't work" after having asked for earmarks. This doesn't count as hypocrisy for one technical and one quantitative reason. The technical reason is that one could have supposed a given earmark would 'work' while in the aggregate the earmarks would not work. The quantitative reason is that Dickerson fails to realize that when people say, "the earmarks didn't work", they usually mean, "the earmarks didn't work well". Its quite a different thing.

Dickerson's opinion piece is here.

These People Are NOT Hypocrites

The Atlanta Progressive News does not disguise its ideology.

When a reporter working for them was too objective, they fired him for being too objective and they told him, in writing that his objectivity was the reason for the firing and, to top it off, they issued a press release restating this point.

Here is a portion of the press release

"...Jonathan Springston served as Staff Writer, then Senior Staff Writer for a total of four years. During that time, he has grown as a writer and has produced a lot of content which has served to inform our readership on issues ranging from Troy Davis to Grady Hospital...

At a very fundamental, core level, Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News. It just wasn’t the right fit...."

There is something very refreshing about this. I frequently find subjective, value laden statements placed in the Washington Post 'news' articles and this subjectivity, etc. is even worse in other newspapers and worse still on TV on stations that claim to be objective.

This information was taken from the Atlanta Creative Loafing weekly.

Hypocrisy Awareness

In an opinion piece at Slate, a webzine owned by the Washington Post, Ben Eidelson explains why the filibuster is OK for Democrats but not for Republicans.

Mr. Eidelson was obviously aware that many people had supported the use of the filibuster when there were a majority of the Senate were Republicans (then Senator Obama was one of them) but now oppose the filibuster now that a majority of the Senate are Democrats (now President Obama is one of them). He obviously doesn't like those people (e.g., President Obama) accused of hypocrisy. Thus he has come up with a reason why 'sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander'.

Here is the core of his argument,

"...the charge that it is somehow hypocritical for Democrats to decry Republican filibusters as affronts to majority rule—if they also stand by their past decisions to filibuster the Republicans—is easily answered. When Democrats have filibustered Republicans in recent years, they have very often represented more Americans than the Republican majority [considerable arithmatic went into this statement]; the same is almost never true in reverse..."

Clever.

I'll not analyze the argument. The point is the the author is hyperware of the hypocrisy argument and has taken considerable trouble to devise a statistical argument to justify what seems hypocrisy on its face.

To Apologize would be Hypocritical

This is a new twist. The chair of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, admitted that a part of the latest report issued by that organization was wrong (egregiously so) but refused to apologize because it would be hypocritical. This was "... because he was not personally responsible for that part of the report..."

If I could I would try to analyze whether refusing to apologize because it would be hypocritical would be hypocritical. I could do this if I had access to his statements asking other people to apologize but I don't have access to that.

article here IPCC image from his wikipedia entry

Nancy Grace Hypocrite???

Actually, the opinion piece refers to her as 'hypocrite extraordinaire.

I'm not sure I understand all of this but here is a central point from the opinion piece,

"...The latest news has Grace’s lawyers trying to ban cameras from videotaping her being questioned about a woman, Melinda Duckett, who killed herself after Grace interviewed her.

Grace — who has made an entire career out of turning other people’s tragedies into entertainment — argued that the video might cause “annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, and undue harm should the videotape be released prior to trial for purposes unrelated to the litigation,” according to the emergency motion, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Ocala."

I don't understand how talking about other people's tragedies is the same thing as banning cameras from a particular place where you are being questioned. In the Duckett case, the woman in question (who had a missing child) agreed to be questioned on camera. Nancy's questioning of the woman was certainly pointed and in my opinion, insulting and demeaning and Mrs Duckett committed suicide the next day (which was the day before the film was to be aired on national TV). However, if the woman had not agreed to be filmed, she would not have been filmed.

I think you can accuse Nancy Grace of many things and I find her personally distasteful. However, the legal motion to ban filming of herself being questioned does not meet my test for hypocrisy.

The image and text taken from a blog on the orlando florida sentinel