M J Rosenberg is a political analyst, columnist and consultant (that's him with Obama)..
He has had a long career. He worked at AIPAC, he worked as a political appointee in the Clinton administration. He was a foreign policy chief of the leftist org Media Matters. He is currently known to be a critic of Israel's policy in the West Bank. Some would say he is more than a critic and has crossed the line to Israel hater. Whatever.
What concerns this site is his comments on Chuck Hagel, the nominee for DOD Secretary.
MJ Rosenberg asserts that Hagel was lying in his testimony to Congress and that Hagel's difficulty with lying made him (Hagel) come across as stupid. M J does not use the word hypocrite.
Here is a post by MJ on this subject.
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer by training who writes a column for the British newspaper 'The Guardian'. He focuses on civil liberties related issues (that's him on the left - pun intended).
He recently wrote a column entitled,
DOJ kill list memo forces many Dems out of the closet as overtly unprincipled hacks
The column points out some of the people and groups that harshly criticized President Bush for various executive actions taken (e.g., drone warfare) while either excusing or ignoring President Obama's actions of the same sort. An example is,
" ... quoted Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor and fervent
Obama supporter, as admitting without any apparent shame that "if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms" because, she said "we trust the president"."
"... polls now show
that Democrats and even self-identified progressives support policies
that they once pretended to loathe now that it is Obama rather than Bush
embracing them...."
The point to me is that Greenwald does not use the word 'hypocrisy'. Instead, as in the title, he declares what others would call hypocrites as 'overly unprincipled hacks' (how many hacks are principled I wonder?). Interestingly, while pointing out that former candidate Obama was one of the people who criticized the tactics President Obama now employs, Greenwald chooses not to call Obama a hypocrite or a hack.
Interesting Greenwald cites the lack of hackery (or lack of hypocrisy - Greenwald uses neither word however) of the Republicans in this particular instance.
" What also made this last week unique was the reaction of the
American Right. Progressives love to recite the conceit that Republicans
will never praise Obama no matter what he does. This is a complete
sham: conservatives, including even Cheney himself, have repeatedly lavished praise on Obama for his embrace of Bush/Cheney policies in these areas..."
The Greenwald column is here.
Related column in Salon webzine is here
