NBC's Gregory and the Efficacy of Armed Guards at Schools

Dave Gregory is a journalist. He has children who go to a private school and that school has armed guards.

Dave Gregory recently went on something of an on-line rant scoffing at the the notion that armed guards could prevent multiple killings at schools (this was during an interview with an NRA official). 

Hypocrisy?

Nope. 

Here's one reason: Gregory is not in charge of the school's security; for all we know he may not approve of it. 

Here's another reason: Gregory may approve of the security but on the grounds that the security at the school protects the kids (Sidwell Friends), not so much from crazed killers but from nosy journalists (since Gregory is a journalist himself this brings up a new layer of issues, but I'll ignore it).

Article on the issue is here. Picture of Gregory is from Wikipedia on him.

Senator Mike Crapo and the DUI

US Senator Mike Crapo (pronounced KRAY-PO) was arrested on Dec 23, 2012 for DUI in suburban VA. There was no accident and no one was hurt (he ran a red light). His blood alcohol was 0.11 (the upper limit there is 0.08).

All this is unremarkable except that Senator Crapo (R-ID) is also a Mormon, at one time a bishop in a church whose doctrine prohibits alcohol (there may be a medical out on this but Crapo didn't claim this) and one who has proclaimed his alcohol abstinence as a personal value.

Is this hypocrisy?

No. As I see it, it's sin.

If Crapo would, after being arrested, said something implying that it was OK for him to drink but not for others, that would have been hypocrisy. 

It reminds me of the joke where the Priest says to the Rabbi,  
"just between the two of us, have you ever had pork" to which the Rabbi says 'yes'. Then the Rabbi says to the Priest, "just between the two of us have you had sex since you became a Priest" and the Priest says 'yes'. Then the Rabbi says, "beats the heck out of pork, doesn't it?"

Newspaper article on the DUI is here.

E.J. Dionne and the Hypocrisy of Analysis

Eugene Joseph Dionne is a columnist for the Washington Post (that's him in the image).

In an analysis of the 2012 Presidential Election, he said that Obama now a strong mandate.

Back in 2004, after the Presidential Election that year, he said that Bush did not have a mandate.

Here are some sentences from the 2012 column,

"... now Obama will have the strongest argument a politician can offer. Repeatedly, he asked the voters to settle Washington’s squabbles in his favor. On Tuesday, they did. And so a president who took office four years ago on a wave of emotion may now have behind him something more valuable and durable: a majority that thought hard about his stewardship and decided to let him finish the job he had begun."

Here are some sentences from the 2004 column,

"...A decent respect for the outcome of an election never requires free citizens to cower before a temporarily dominant majority... A 51-48 percent victory is not a mandate."

Interestingly, in both the 2004 and 2012 election, a sitting President won another term. In both elections, the margin was about 51-48. In both elections the President's party had a strengthened majority in the Senate. One difference was that in the 2004 election, the President's party had a majority in the House but in the 2012 election the President's party had a minority in the House. Thus, it seems Bush's mandate in 2004 was stronger than Obama's mandate in 2012. I suspect Dionne is simply a partisan hack but one could argue that there was other complicating features that made the 2004 election not a mandate but the 2012 one a mandate. Thus I'll not call Dionne a hypocrite, though I suspect he is (and I also find him a boring one also).


Dionne's column of 11-7-2012 is here.
Dionne's column of 11-4-2004 is here.

Why Was Thomas Jefferson a Hypocrite

Almost always, the posts on this site will analyze whether or not somebody is a hypocrite.

Not this time.

Thomas Jefferson is nearly universally recognized as a hypocrite on the slavery issue. 

From his earliest writings, through the documents relating to the establishment of the United States, through his Presidency and his post Presidency, Thomas Jefferson denounced slavery on moral and ethical grounds.

Yet, not only did he have slaves, he also put advertisements in the newspaper to have run away slaves returned, he hired overseers to minimize unruly slave behavior knowing these overseers were inclined to violence, etc.

The historical question is "Why?". There have been three or four hypotheses for this. The one most favorable to Jefferson is that he sincerely believed that emancipation should be gradual to avoid problems for slaveowners, free farmers, slaves, etc. The least favorable to Jefferson is that he compartmentalized his moral position into a very small part of his thinking. 

The book, whose cover is above, seems to propose that Jefferson was seduced or overwhelmed by his economic interests. Per the books reviews, Jefferson had a number of major business problems as well as many cost overruns developing Monticello. His slaves provided the economic basis for a steady income (including income from selling slaves) and without that he couldn't have continued to build out the estate.

The amazon site for the book is here.

Obama and the Stafford Act

I haven't had a lot of comments about the 2012 Presidential election because there is so much material that its actually depressing. But this time it was worth doing because of an oddity.

Back in 2007, then Senator Obama was addressing a mostly black audience in SE Virginia. During the speech, he implied that the Bush administration's refusal to submit a waiver of the Stafford Act (a requirement for a local contribution) to Congress, was racist. This referred to the case of the the salvage and reconstruction of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina. Some people, in 2012, are accusing then Senator of using racially provocative language and racially provocative slang in the course of that speech.

The racist issue doesn't concern this post. What concerns the post is that, a short time before the speech (about a week before in fact), the Stafford issue had come up in the Senate and, then Senator Obama had voted against granting a Stafford Act waiver. The waiver was approved anyway.

Sounds like hypocrisy.

But its not.

The reason it is not hypocrisy is because of the complexity of legislation. The bill that contained the Stafford Act waiver also contained funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom (which Obama and about a dozen Democrats opposed enough to vote against the combined bill).



CSMonitor story on the reappearance of the 2007 speech is here.
A discussion of the 2007 legislation, including the complexity is here.
A listing of the vote on the 2007 legislation is here.

Paul Campos - Law School Hypocrit or Not

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado writes a blog called "Inside the Law School Scam"

Several of his posts on that site show that law schools have used biased or unrepresentative or questionably information when 'selling themselves' to prospective students or to law school associations or to other organizations.

Several people commented at his site that he was a hypocrite for drawing a salary that is based, at least partly, on the proceeds due to such biased, unrepresentative or questionable practices.

This is pretty obviously not hypocrisy as I define it. Mr. Campos is not practicing the biased, etc. practices, his employer is. If the University of Colorado had an official policy saying, in effect, "We won't misrepresent the job placement of our graduates" and then did so, they would be hypocrites. If Campos did this, then he would be a hypocrite.

In some way, this is similar to the many cases where people say the Government should do (or not do) something and then take advantage of the fact that the Government does not do what they advocate. For example, there are probably thousands of people who feel that the interest for mortgages above a given limit should not be itemized as part of Schedule A of form 1040 but who itemize it themselves.

Basically, you shouldn't be called a hypocrite except for your own actions.

Professor Campos's blog post on the accusations of hypocrisy  is here.

The image on the left is from a Time Magazine piece written several years ago on another subject.

Harry Reid and tax form hypocrisy

U.S. Senator Harry Reid accuses former Governor and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney of tax evasion and demands Romney release more tax returns (Romney has released his year 2010 return and his estimated year 2011 return). However, Senator Reid has not released any of his tax returns (fewer than 2 dozen US elected officials has released their returns, however Reid has filed a financial disclosure form which has different information than a tax return).

Does that make Red a hypocrite?

No.

Because a Senator is not a nominee for President.

Of course, this does not mean Reid is correct in that a Presidential candidate should be required to release tax returns nor does it mean Reid is correct that a Senator should not be required to release such returns. Neither action is required by the Constitution, neither action is required by law.  Thus whether someone should do so is a matter of opinion.

A satirical response to Reid has been initiated to the effect that there are rumors that he is a sexual molester and challenging him to prove that he is not.

A source noting that that Senator Reid is not one of the US elected officials releasing tax forms is here.
A story on the accumulation of wealth by Senator Reid during his Senator career is here.
A story on the Reid accusations is here and here. (leftist sources) and here and here (rightist sources)  
The satirical 'Reid is a pederast' campaign is described here.

Is Yale Hypocritical on Gay Stuff

There was a piece in Commentary a few days ago with a clever title, 

"Yale Gives Course in Hypocrisy"

The crux of the argument is that for many years Yale did not allow an ROTC pretense on campus, ostensibly because of the discharging of gays from the military. Soon, however, Yale will be opening an annex in Singapore, a country that criminalizes homosexual behavior (Singapore also has other authoritarian practices, e.g., speech is not anywhere as free as in the US).

There are some problems in labeling this hypocrisy. First, I don't have a good way to get at the details, e.g., was the anti ROTC action really because of the homosexual issue or was the homosexual issue a cover for a general anti military attitude (the ban on ROTC at Yale was initiated in the 1970s)  Second, the two actions may be (actually probably are) initiated by different parts of Yale.

BTW, I could have used the Commentary Logo for this but the Yale Logo is more fun (the words are Urim  Ve Tumim - which is fancifully translated as 'light and truth') and because some of the show Gilmore Girls was set there.

The Commentary piece is here.

Matt Taibbi Hypocrisy within two paragraphs

Matt Taibbi is a columnist for Rolling Stone and the author of about a half dozen books and a winner of the "National Magazine Award for Commentary".

He has an opinion piece in Rolling Stone's July issue criticizing Mitt Romney's speech to the NAACP. Here is part of the first paragraph,

"...Romney really showed us something in his luridly self-congratulating N.A.A.C.P. gambit, followed by the awesomely disgusting "free stuff" post-mortem speech he delivered the next night in front of friendlier audiences. The twin appearances revealed the candidate to be not merely unlikable, and not merely a fatuous, unoriginal hack of a politician, but also a genuinely repugnant human being, a grasping corporate hypocrite with so little feel for how to get along with people that he has to dream up elaborate schemes just to try to pander to the mob."

and here is part of the 4th paragraph,

"... Without accepting blame or admitting guilt, he could have talked about the increasingly strident tone of the national debate over racially charged issues, and wondered aloud if politicians on both sides perhaps needed to find a new way to talk about these things without fearmongering, stereotyping, or trading accusations. He could have met the racial-tension issue head on, in other words, just by saying out loud the simple truth that white and nonwhite Americans, and Democrats and Republicans both, need to find more civilized ways to talk about their political concerns...."

So after Mr. Taibbi declares Romney to be fatuous, unoriginal and genuinely repugnant, Taibbi comes for more civilized ways to talk.

I think Mr. Taibbi might not consider labeling Romney as fatuous, unoriginal and genuinely repugnant to be uncivil. This would be so if Mr. Taibbi considers such labels as objective truth. However, I can't find a specific fact that would lead to the labels established by Taibbi except that Romney said that there is no such thing as a free lunch (Taibbi doesn't actually use these words but acknowledges that Romney's speech to the NAACP was similar to a speech Romney gave to a mostly Republican audience in Montana later that same week and the 'no such thing as a free lunch' quote was in the Montana speech but not the NAACP speech). It seems Taibbi construes the 'no free lunch' comment as a racist as well as fatuous, etc. comment. The 'no free lunch' meme goes back many generations and, up until now it was, as near as I can tell, never considered racist or repugnant, but simply a general observation.

So whether Taibbi is a hypocrite depends on whether he believes something is obviously true (the 'no free lunch' comment is racist) even though there is no evidence that anyone else believes this. I gotta say 'NO' on this and therefore conclude that Taibbi is a hypocrite and manages to show it in a single published article (no wonder he is an award winner).

The Rolling Stone piece is here.

The transcript of the Romney speech to the NAACP is here.

I can't find a transcript OF The Romney Montana speech as of this posting. Nor did the Rolling Stone piece link to it but Ann Althouse, a Wisconsin based blogger, points out that Taibbi left off the explanatory part of Romney's Montana speech in his (Taibbi's) quote to make it seem more menacing than it was.

The Zoo Rabbi charges Hypocrisy

Rabbi Natan Slifkin is known as the zoo Rabbi because he has made a concentrated study of the zoology of the Tanach and Talmud.

He was at Beth Sholom one time (I was in Atlanta that week).

He has a blog that is not limited to zoology. In a recent post he charged the Haredim with hypocrisy for demanding draft deferments justified by a theology that deep Torah study protects Israel while also demanding continued social benefits (housing, food allowances, etc.).

Slifkin says that the former theology requires a belief that God will provide protection to the State by virtue of the Torah study but the second position means that the Haredim don't believe God would provide sustenance by virtue of Torah study.

He charges that this is hypocrisy.

Not all Haredim hold these beliefs but even if they did I don't think it is hypocrisy. 

Belief systems themselves may be complex or filled with distinctions but as long as one practices according to the belief, there is no hypocrisy.  There are, as Slifkin himself seems to acknowledge, a number of ways that the belief system can be justified. For example, the first theological statement, i.e., God protects Israel because of Torah study is qualitatively different from the issue of social benefits because it is the State of Israel, not God that provides said benefits. Another justification would be that the deep Torah study also allows the country to be sufficiently prosperous to subsidize the study. Many other justifications are possible.

As Slifkin seems to acknowledge, both theological statements are part of a belief system which simply justifies a particular life style.

In addition, the life style that is being defended is the life style of the Haredi Rabbaim because it is they who are doing the lobbying, etc. Personally, I doubt that the Haredi students are all diligent or even happily learning scholars because I've seen many, many Haredi-looking folk on the street shopping, etc. during normal learning hours.

Slifkin's post is here.

Transportation Hypocrisy or incoherence

A letter to the Montgomery County Gazette accuses elected officials of hypocrisy regarding transportation.

First, the letter writer notes that he likes light rail more than bus rapid transit. He then says that Montgomery county is proceeding toward a rapid bus transit decision as opposed to light rail. He then notes that Baltimore has a light rail line (all these statements are presumed to be true). Then he makes the accusation:

"Why should Montgomery County be handed only the choice of a dedicated bus line when the politicians from Baltimore, sitting in the positions of authority at the State House in Annapolis, commit hypocrisy given the light rail in their area? What hypocrisy.

So per the letter writer, because there is light rail in Baltimore, then Montgomery County must have light rail also.  This would be hypocrisy only if light rail and bus rapid transit were identical in their cost, impact, service characteristics, etc. but they are not. Think of the argument this way, if handicapped people get handicapped parking, why shouldn't non handicapped people get handicapped parking?

I think the argument is incompetent. No hypocrisy.

Letter in full available here.

Tim Noah's Definition of Hypocrisy

Tim Noah is a senior editor at The New Republic.

In an opinion piece for that publication he writes about Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard U. who is running for Senate in Massachusetts.

Warren claimed American Indian ancestry on her professor ID at Harvard (and earlier did so at another University). She denied remembering that she had made this claim but later admitted it. It also turns out that nobody has been able to identify any American Indian ancestry for Warren.

Noah, who perhaps for ideological reasons, seems to like Warren comes up with several points defending her. The one that interested me is this,

"...Warren may have used her Native American ancestry to get ahead in the cutthroat world of legal academia. We don’t know that she did, and she says she didn’t. But let’s assume she’s lying and that she did make an effort to inform potential employers that she was part Native American. That would be hypocritical if Warren were known to oppose affirmative action. But Warren, a liberal Democrat, almost certainly supports affirmative action.."

Apparently, in Noah's definition, if you support affirmative action, it is NOT hypocritical to lie about your ancestry it but if you oppose affirmative action, it would be hypocritical to lie your ancestry..

I can't follow the logic there. Lying about ancestry to achieve an appointment as a professor is a distinct action that would seem to undermine the whole point of affirmative action as well as being inherently immoral and.or unethical. But maybe Noah doesn't see it that way. .


Noah's opinion piece is here.

National Security Hypocrisy

The NY Times essentially states that the President of the US is a hypocrite in a long deeply sourced article. Here are some excerpts from the article (the image is from the article and shows President Obama with two advisers):

"...Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war...Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president’s own deep reserve.. . a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.... the invention of a new category of aerial attack following complaints of careless targeting; and presidential acquiescence in a formula for counting civilian deaths that some officials think is skewed to produce low numbers....A phalanx of retired generals and admirals stood behind Mr. Obama on the second day of his presidency, providing martial cover as he signed several executive orders to make good on campaign pledges. Brutal interrogation techniques were banned, he declared. And the prison at Guantánamo Bay would be closed. What the new president did not say was that the orders contained a few subtle loopholes. They reflected a still unfamiliar Barack Obama, a realist who, unlike some of his fervent supporters, was never carried away by his own rhetoric. Instead, he was already putting his lawyerly mind to carving out the maximum amount of maneuvering room to fight terrorism as he saw fit...a new definition of “detention facility” was inserted, excluding places used to hold people “on a short-term, transitory basis.” Problem solved — and no messy public explanation damped Mr. Obama’s celebration. Without showing his hand, Mr. Obama had preserved three major policies — rendition, military commissions and indefinite detention — that have been targets of human rights groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks...Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent....In the wake of Mr. Awlaki’s death, some administration officials, including the attorney general, argued that the Justice Department’s legal memo should be made public. In 2009, after all, Mr. Obama had released Bush administration legal opinions on interrogation over the vociferous objections of six former C.I.A. directors. This time, contemplating his own secrets, he chose to keep the Awlaki opinion secret.." 

At least a few conservatives have essentially said "Hooray for Hypocrisy". Rich Lowry, of the National Review, essentially says that the Bush doctrine of counter terrorism was correct and now that Obama is doing it, the left agrees in that the left hasn't been critical of Obama. Mr. Lowry's view is capsulized in this quote, 

"..For most of the left, the highest principle of just-war theory is licet si Obama id faciat (it’s okay if Obama does it). This is how Gitmo, formerly a standing repudiation of all that we hold dear as a nation, becomes an afterthought when it is owned and operated by one Barack H. Obama...".

I like the support of hypocrisy. However, neither the NY Times nor Lowry actually gives a quote by candidate Obama that matches an action by President Obama. Without quotes it is just a plausible accusation rather than an example and it is also plausible that the candidate Obama used nuances in his, for example, seemingly anti Drone strike.

A similar 'I like the hypocrisy' opinion piece is in the Washington Post on-line. It is written by a Mark Thiessen. This one also does not provide any 'Obama is a hypocrite' documentation or citations but does provide a citation that Amnesty International called for arrest of George Bush. Thiessen implies that Amnesty International has not issued a peep of protest about Obama's actions (however, I don't see a good way to provide documentation of a none event other than get Amnesty International to make an actual statement saying they think Obama isn't doing anything wrong - and I'm pretty sure Amnesty Intl doesn't do stuff  like that).

NY Times article is here.
Lowry's opinion piece is here.
Thiessen opinion piece is here.

Doug Schoen: All Super Pacs are bad, except

Doug Schoen is a columnist for Forbes magazine.

He authored an opinion piece that denounced a super PAC for considering using an anti Obama ad that uses material from President Obama's former pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright. He calls this inexcusable, disgusting and some other names although he seems to acknowledge that the ad was never produced.

Then he says it is a shame that a pro Obama super PAC was forced to put out anti Romney ads in response. Yes, it seems Schoen believes or, possibly is pretending to believe that an ad that didn't get aired is disgusting and shameful, etc. but that the attack ad in response was necessary to counteract the non existent ad.

If he is pretending to believe it, then he is a hypocrite but it is quite possible he believes it.

Schoen's opinion piece is here.

Frank Bruni (NYTimes) accuses

Frank Bruni was the food critic at the NYTimes for several years and now writes on general cultural subjects as well as on food.

In a recent opinion piece he had this to say (in speaking about Bristol Palin),

"...But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed."

Bruni's piece is full of lots of criticism of both Bristol Palin and Rush Limbaugh. However, I'm unable to follow his argument. As best as I can tell, the accusation of hypocrisy against Bristol Palin is that she has criticized gay marriage while, herself being an unwed mother. I don't understand what one thing has to do with another. Bruni also attacks the Palin assertion that children are better off in a nuclear family than otherwise. Bruni does not accuse Palin of having no facts on which to base the assertion (which would be true) but instead criticizes Palin's ex fiance.

With respect to Limbaugh, Bruni says that since Limbaugh has been married four times, he shouldn't criticize gay marriage. Again, I'm unable to understand what one thing has to do with another.

Bruni's opinion piece is here.

NR Editor Johnathon Cohn admits something

Johnathon Cohn is a senior editor at the New Republic (the image is from about a few years ago when Cohn was already working on the health care issue).

He is a fan of the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare).

He recently wrote a piece stating that since the revenues raised by the insurance mandate are actually taxes, that then Obamacare is constitutional. I'm not going to comment about that.

Subsequent to his first piece on the subject, someone wrote to him and said that, if the mandate is a tax, then President Obama was breaking his 'no tax increases for people making under $250k/year' promise). Mr. Cohn essentially admits that this is true. If so, it would make Obama a hypocrite for saying one thing and meaning another, at least when the mandate takes effect (it is scheduled for 2014 as of this post) and assuming that Obama knew what Cohn knows which is likely. Interestingly, that does not bother  Johnathon Cohn in the slightest and I don't think it bothers many people either. The reason, I think, is that almost no one believed Obama when he made the promise.

Thus Cohn is admitting Obama is a hypocrite and implying that this hypocrisy was necessary for the common good. 

Cohn's article is here.


Note: my father subscribed to the New Republic for a few years before he died and my mom kept the subscription until she died - I renewed it once after she died in my own name but then did not renew it after that).

Context and Intent can nullify hypocrisy

Andrew Rosenthal has been editor of the editorial page of the NYTimes for several years. He has worked for the NYTimes since the 1980s. His father worked for the NYTimes. He knows a few things about newspapers and knows a few things about editorials.

He recently wrote a blog piece (which I don't think was in the paper edition of the NYTimes) admitting that then Senator and later candidate Obama harshly criticized former President Bush for the latter's signing statements and executive orders but now President Obama does the same thing. He has an interesting explanation for why this isn't hypocrisy.

Here it is,

"..I was appalled, and so was the Times editorial board (and so, in fact was Senator Barack Obama) when a Boston Globe reporter, Charlie Savage, documented Mr. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements and executive orders. But I am not appalled by the way Mr. Obama is relying on those instruments – as detailed in today’s Times by that same enterprising reporter, who now works for us. Context and intent make all the difference. ...."  

as Rosenthal explains later,

"..Unlike the Bush/Cheney team, Mr. Obama did not take office with the explicit goal of creating new powers for the presidency."

Really. Did the Bush/Chaney team have the explicit goal of creating new powers for the presidency? Mr. Rosenthal gives no evidence of this and I think I know why. No such evidence exists. Bush presumably didn't think he would have to issue signing statements at all. Obama presumably thought likewise. This is because many people simply do not have experience looking at actual statutory language, realizing how awful it is and having to try to find some way to work around that language. Given Rosenthal's experience, he not only should know this, he almost certainly does. Btw, I'm not accusing Rosenthal of hypocrisy here since he is simply carrying out an objective of defending the politician he likes while criticizing the one he doesn't like.

    Blog Post by Mr Rosenthal is here. The caricature used as an image is on Mr. Rosenthal's website.

Dr. Peggy Drexler and 'parenthood'

Dr. Drexler wrote something in the Huffington Post recently. She is against the automatic 'role assignment' of parents. Here is a quote,

"...To parent: It's a verb that barely existed a quarter of a century ago. By now, however, it is more useful than the verbs "to father" and "to mother," which were always of limited utility. "To father" refers to nothing more than the biological function of making a baby; it is the provenance of paternity suits...."


But here is Dr. Drexler at her own website, 


"...I am a long-married mother of a son and daughter.".

ooops.

Either she is a hypocrite or just tardy about updating her website to reflect her own research.

Post on the Huffington Post is here.
Dr. Drexler's website is here.

Salman Rushdie and Civility

If anyone would be expected to understand the idea of sensitivity and hypersensitivity, it would be Salman Rushdie (image of Rushdie at a film festival in 2011).

According to a recent article in the NYTimes (which carried the image shown above), Rushdie has a strong sense of civility as noted,

"...he seems to expect a certain civility. Mr. Rushdie blocked a Twitter follower last month [that would be Feb 2012] after the follower made a cutting remark about having read one of Mr. Rushdie’s books in high school. “Discourtesy not tolerated here,” Mr. Rushdie wrote in a tweet. “Your parents need to teach you your manners.”"

On the other hand,  here is a tweet made by Rushdie only yesterday,

Confused by news of Dick Cheney's heart "transplant." That implies he had one before.

9:09 AM - 25 Mar 12 via web

I think what Rushdie means is not "Discourtesy not tolerated by anyone" but "Discourtesy of me is not tolerated by me." Thus it would not be hypocritical to slam the 'follower' but then turn around and make a vicious comment about former VP Cheney. Of course, this doesn't mean that Rushdie is a nice guy, because, it shows he can be vicious (and the discourtesy to himself may irritate him because of an over sense of ego). 




NYTimes article here
Tweet here.

Two Cheers for double standards

Stanley Fish writing in a NYTimes blog (the same title as this post) essentially says that it is OK to be critical of Rush Limbaugh (right image) but not Bill Maher. This is so even though what he said wasn't as nasty as what Bill Maher (left) said and even though Maher never apologized.

He specifically says the the Tim Noah theory (in the post below) "won't wash".

Instead he says that the larger issue of having your ideas triumph (since you must view your ideas as the right ideas) justifies not being fair, specifically,

"... Rather than relaxing or soft-pedaling your convictions about what is right and wrong, stay with them, and treat people you see as morally different differently. Condemn Limbaugh and say that Schultz and Maher may have gone a bit too far but that they’re basically O.K. If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair. “Fair” is a weak virtue; it is not even a virtue at all because it insists on a withdrawal from moral judgment.
I know the objections to what I have said here. It amounts to an apology for identity politics. It elevates tribal obligations over the universal obligations we owe to each other as citizens. It licenses differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view. It substitutes for the rule “don’t do it to them if you don’t want it done to you” the rule “be sure to do it to them first and more effectively.” It implies finally that might makes right. I can live with that."

So I take this as a statement that some things (politics) are too important to avoid hypocrisy.



Mr. Fish's blog post on this is here.

Tim Noah Defends Carbonite

Actually, I'm not sure Tim Noah (a journalist and senior editor of The New Republic) means to defend Carbonite (a company which sells software to back up files in cyberspace). In fact, I have no evidence to support my guess that Noah may know that the Carbonite company exists.

However, Carbonite recently ended their sponsorship of the Rush Limbaugh radio program. This was because, apparently of Mr. Limbaugh's reference to Sandra Flute as a sl.te (Ms Flute is an unmarried student at Georgetown law school who advocated requiring employers to pay for contraception). Limbaugh subsequently apologized for that. Carbonite, however, retained sponsorship of the Mr. Ed show despite Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham the same thing (Ed Schultz did apologize for this but not for other insults of this kind).

If I didn't cite the Carbonite issue, the whole thing wouldn't be hypocrisy because people who criticized Rush Limbaugh would claim they didn't know and shouldn't have to look up information about the Mr. Ed show (this wouldn't apply to Carbonite).

Mr. Noah cites a few cases of liberals calling conservative women obscenity laden names and says that this isn't the same for two reasons.

1. Sandra Flute, although a public activist, is not a public figure.As Mr. Noah puts it, "...First, all of the people who were subjected to verbal abuse by the liberal- or left-leaning blowhards and smart-asses mentioned above are public figures. If you follow politics you know who they are. Fluke, on the other hand, though a political activist, was not really a public figure.."

2. Something to do with President Obama not being afraid of rappers (I didn't follow the logic since, among other things, I thought it was about calling women names). Mr. Noah considers this more important than #1 above.

3. Rush Limbaugh has a bigger audience than the liberals who called conservatives obscenity laden names.As Mr. Noah puts it, "...When Taibbi, Olbermann, Mahar, and Schultz tell liberals what to think few of us even hear what it is they're saying and no politician pays them any mind. (Sorry, fellas, but it's true.) It matters more to society what a person with a big following says than what a person with a small following says."

Mr. Noah did not address the fact that Limbaugh apologized and the liberals generally didn't. He also asserts, without citing facts, the influence of Limbaugh. He also doesn't weigh the fact that Ms Flute is seeking to be a public figure.

Notwithstanding those things, he probably believes them. However, what about the totality. Even if each individual liberal insult (unacceptably vile, in Noah's words) is less important than Limbaugh's doesn't the fact that there are many of them count for something. Also, why isn't Mr. Limbaugh's apology important.

Even given Mr. Noah's beliefs, I can't excuse him from the charge of hypocrisy.

Tim Noah's piece in TNR is here.
Kisten Powers (writing for the Daily Beast) gives a more complete list (than Mr. Noah did) of liberal misogyny here.
Michelle Malkin (who used to live in our neighborhood) gives a list here.  Ms Malkin is the subject of many such misogynistic insults (she got enough for one chapter of a book). She has stated that she left our neighborhood because of threats.

Story on Carbonite's actions regarding the Rush Limbaugh program and the Mr. Ed program is here. This story also has embedded video so it covers quite a bit.

Death threats, approximately contemporaneous with the Noah article, reported against Limbaugh here.
next day, Keith Obermann issues an apology (sort of) for misogynistic insults to SE Culp and Michelle Malkin here.

Not A Hypocrite by virtue of Insanity?

David Brock (image on left) is the founder (in 2004) of Media Matters for America. He was at one time a right wing journalist (this was during the Clinton era) and then early in the Bush presidency became a left wing journalist.

As an organization, Media Matters is pro gun control. In fact, in 2010, Media Matters took in $600k in contributions specifically earmarked for pro gun control advocacy. 

However, it seems that David Brock, has armed guards. Not only that, the armed guards do not seem to be licensed to carry guns (as the organization is in Washington DC where obtaining a license is difficult to impossible).

So it would seem that Mr. Brock is a hypocrite.

However, what if, Mr. Brock is insane. Apparently he has had previous problems with mental illness (beginning about the time he moved to the left much to the amusement of some conservatives). He is apparently abusive to employees, etc. Of course there is the obvious issue of why anyone who is, essentially, a hack leftist lobbyist would think people are trying to kill him. Assuming he is insane, his hypocrisy is not conscious and thus he wouldn't actually be considered a 'real' hypocrite, merely a technical hypocrite.   


One investigation (by hotair) of Media Matter (specifically on gun control) is here.
One Media Matters policy post on gun control is here.
Another (more recent) such post on gun control is here.
Daily Caller's investigation of the armed guards is here.
Daily Caller's followup of that situation is here.

Charles Blow and the twitter hypocrisy

Charles Blow (image shows him speaking at an event) is a columnist with the NYTimes. Back in 2008, he praised then Senator Obama for addressing the issue of single parenthood and its effect on society.

Now it is 2012 and when Mitt Romney made statements on the same issue that seem to me to be quite similar to Obama's 2008 comments, Mr. Blow had this to say on Twitter (the actual twitter post is no longer available),

"Let me just tell you this Mitt 'Muddle Mouth': I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear. #CNNdebate""

Mr. Blow has since apologized for that tweet (the reference to magic underwear has to do with the garments of high level Mormon officials) as being bigoted but not for being hypocritical.

Mr. Blow has since the apology tweeted another seemingly bigoted comment and it is still there two days later. The comment is,

"Time to scratch some of this right wing lice out of my timeline. Be back in a sec... #block"

In any event, the 2008 Obama quote and the 2012 Romney quote seem similar to me so I consider Mr. Blow to be a hypocrite (this blog isn't about bigotry but it seems that bigotry might be the factor that makes Mr. Blow unable to see his problem). Of course, if I'm wrong, then its not necessarily hypocrisy.



I'm getting the twitter quotes from Tom McGuire's blog "Just a Minute" because of the twitter deletion by Mr. Blow. That site also conveniently has both the Romney quote and the Obama quote.
Feb 23 tweet by Mr. Blow noted above is here.

Glenn Greenwald Calls His Best Friends 'Hypocrites'

or does he?

Actually, Glenn goes further than that. The opinion piece is called "Repulsive Progressive Hypocrisy". He also uses the phrase "repulsive liberal hypocrisy". He also has this interesting sentence,

"...Indeed: is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me."

The crux of Glenn's argument is that many progressives (or leftists or liberals) criticized Bush Administration officials for example, for wiretapping foreigners with expedited judicial permits but Obama decided to assassinate an American (who was working with foreign terrorists overseas) without even getting a judicial permit.

It is a telling point but here is the problem. Greenwald does not name a single individual person. Maybe he is too lazy to do this, maybe he couldn't find a case he liked, maybe he doesn't want to offend any individual but is willing to criticize a whole demographic.

Whatever the reason, the charge of hypocrisy isn't proved.

Glenn's Opinion Piece is in salon here

Jim Messina - Hypocrite by Using the Wrong Cliche

Yeseterday, the White House signaled to big donors that they were launching an effort to get substantial sums of money to SuperPacs for use in the 2012 Presidential Election Campaign (the image of President Obama was at this campaign event). White House officials and senior advisors and cabinet secretaries will be speaking at fundraising affairs for these superPacs. President Obama famously said in 2010 that corporate funding of elections was devestating to the public interest.

However, I'm not commenting on this. I'm commenting on the comment by Jim Messina (at the 2012 event - that is him in the right image) that,

“With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules. Democrats can’t be unilaterally disarmed.”

I don't understand the 'unilaterally disarmed' comment although it was presumably supposed to be a metaphor. However, there are literally two (actually more than two) sets of rules. The official Obama for President will play by one set of rules and the Priorities USA Pac will play by another set of rules. So technically Messina is a hypocrit. However, this is simply because he used the wrong cliche. If he had said,

"With so much at stake, we will campaign as hard as it takes for as long as it takes",

he would have gotten the same message across without the hypocrisy.

I don't very many people are very disturbed by Messina's hypocrisy by the way. He is just a flunky.

NYTimes 2012 article on the Obama Campaign containing Jim Messina's comments is here.

Huffpo 2010 article containing Obama's "...devestating to the public interest' comment is here.

NYTimes 2008 article on the Obama Campaign rejecting public financing restrictions is here.

The NY Times changes their filibuster rhetoric again

The NYTimes Realizes Their Policy Change

Back in 1995, when a Democrat was President and the Senate was majority Republican by 53-47, the NY Times had an editorial entitled, "Time to Retire the Filibuster".

In 2005, when a Republican was President and the Senate was majority Republican by 55-44 (with one independent), the NY Times had an editorial supporting the Filibuster. Within the editorial (which had the title, "Walking in the Opposition's Shoes") was the following language (in which they admit to changing their position),

"...A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the "nuclear option" in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton's early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it's obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide."

In 2012, again with a Democratic President and a Senate that is 51 Democratic (with 2 independents who frequently join with the Democratic Party) the NYTimes again admits to changing their position (they are now against the filibuster) in an editorial titled "Filibustering Must End". Here is their admission of a change in policy,

"...This is a major change of position for us, and we came to it reluctantly. The filibuster has sometimes been the only way to deny life terms on the federal bench to extremist or unqualified judges. But the paralysis has become so dire that we see no other solution..."

The NYTimes here is not acknowledging the obvious, namely, that they seem to oppose filibusters when filibusters will hurt Presidents who are Democrats but support filibusters when filibusters will hurt Presidents who are Republicans. Given that the policy re: filibustering is editorial and editorials are opinions, there is no reason I can see why they don't simply say this.

I think this is actual hypocrisy, although they admit that they are changing their policy. This is because I think they are being disingenuous about their actual reasons, that is I think the editors can't possibly believe the actual logic of their editorial position (and I think this is obvious to most of there readers who also mostly agree with the editorial position and also agree that it would be best to be disingenuous while writing it up).
1995 NYTimes editorial here.
2005 NYTimes editorial here.
2012 NYTimes editorial here.

Jesse Jackson adds to the Civility Hypocrisy Issue

Back on July 6, 2008, Rev. Jesse Jackson, thinking the microphone (and camera - the image is from that event) was off, famously said about then Senator Obama "I want to cut his nuts off." Jackson gestured during this in a way to demonstrate such an action. The footage and audio was captured and shown by Fox News Network beginning July 8, 2008.

On January 28, 2012, Jackson criticized Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for pointing her finger at now President Obama during an argument (or heated discussion) the previous week (the argument/discussion was filmed and shown beginning January 27.

So gesturing about cutting off someones genitals is OK but finger pointing isn't. Eh.

Actually, it is difficult to get around labelling Jackson a hypocrite here. However there are two mitigating facts.

1. Jackson did apologize for the 'cutting off genital' comment.
2. Jackson's comment was when Obama was a Senator. Brewer's is when Obama is President.

On the other hand, no one else has criticized Brewer for this (that I can find) and Brewer hasn't seen fit to apologize (she probably doesn't realize Jackson has called for it).

So, given that the apology was only after it was shown on TV and that the difference between a Senator and a President, while significant, isn't that significant, I'm going to have to call Jesse Jackson a hypocrite here.

Jackson 2008 remarks and apology here.
January 2012 remarks by Jackson here.