Tillerson, Russia, and hypocrisy

The title of the post is not mine but from a post by Paul Mirengoff on the blog Powerline (first image is Mirengoff).

Mirengoff is a retired attorney who currently is head of an organization in Minnesota that advocates for lower taxes and less regulation.  

Mirengoff wrote this post, apparently anticipating that people who support the nomination of Rex Tillerson (second image is Tillerson) for Secretary of State will criticize people who oppose Tillerson on grounds of hypocrisy.  Mirengoff anticipates that much of this criticism will wrongly cite hypocrisy (there are of course other grounds to oppose this nomination).  I can't remember someone anticipating incorrect hypocrisy criticism before.





Mirengoff's post is here.

Harry Reid Praises FBI director's integrity then reverses

Back in July 2016, Reid praised the FBI Director, James Comey as a man of integrity. This was after Comey decided (or possibly recommended) no prosecution for presumptive Presidential nominee (and former Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton. That was in regard to the matter of the emails. 

A bit later and Reid criticized Comey when Comey revealed the existence of Clinton email on the hard drive of a laptop computer belonging to former US Representative Anthony Weiner (image of Reid is from an article on that).

Then after the CIA said that Russia may be behind the Wikileak promulgation of email copied from various computer servers, Reid said Comey should be investigated.

This might be considered hypocrisy but it is, I think, simply the maximal partisanship of a very partisan individual.  In fact Reid is so partisan that he is completely unapologetic for what is arguably a bald face 2012 lie about Mitt Romney (when confronted (in 2015) with the fact that his accusation that Romney hadn't paid income tax was untrue and that he didn't actually have a source for his accusation, Reid said it was OK since Romney wasn't elected (the Washington Post called it an 'appalling defense')



Youtube collection of praise for FBI Director James Comey (in July 2016)  here (at about 22 seconds of the video)

Politico article where Reid says Comey may have broken law (Oct 2016).

The Hill article where Harry Reid (in Dec 2016) says FBI director should be investigated re: allegation of Russian interference in election.

WaPo Article where Reid is unapologetic for 2012 false accusation Romney.

Some Issues with Madonna

Madonna has had some amusing things to say which, while not hypocrisy are close to it.

One such was her promise to give oral sex to anyone who voted (in the 2016 Presidential Election) for Hillary Clinton (this was during an introduction to Amy Schumer - Madonna is on the left of the image, Amy on the right). 

A man came by Madonna's hotel room the day of the election with a photo (from his cell phone) of himself voting for Hillary. 

Madonna didn't come out but a security guard responded that he would not get the promised oral sex. 

Oddly, or perhaps not, this seems to be the only case where someone wanted her to make good on the promise.

Another Madonna story is close to hypocrisy.  This comes from a wide ranging interview that Madonna gave to Billboard (an on line web zine and print magazine). She was, I think, wearing the apparel in the second image.

Among the subjects covered was Madonna's opinion of Donald Trump (the interview was taken several days after the 2016 Election when the results were known).

Billboard asked the following:

As a fellow New Yorker, have you ever met the president-elect?

 

Madonna's answer was:

 

I wouldn’t call him a friend or ­anything, but I’ve certainly met him. I did a photo shoot years ago at [Trump’s] Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach [Fla.] for a Versace campaign. He’s a very friendly guy, ­charismatic in that ­boastful, macho, alpha-male way. I found his political incorrectness amusing. Of course, I didn’t know he was going to be running for ­president 20 years later. People like that exist in the world, I’m OK with it. They just can’t be heads of state. I just can’t put him and Barack Obama in the same ­sentence, same room, same job description.

 

Interestingly, the final sentence of Madonna's answer contains both an unqualified assertion and a contradiction of that assertion. This is probably just an example of mistaken work use. When Madonna said, "I just can't...", she undoubtedly meant, "I am unhappy..." or something similar.

Story about Madonna's promise is here.
The Billboard interview is here.

An Atheist Explains His Apparent Hypocrisy

Phil Zuckerman (image on left) is a professor at Pitzer College in California. He is an atheist.  He was asked to explain his frequent criticism of Christianity and Mormonism while avoiding criticism of Islam (apparent double standard or maybe even hypocrisy). 

Here is what he said,

"...“I know what keeps me from critiquing Islam on my blog is just fear,” Phil Zuckerman said at a discussion on religious liberty at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “I’ve got three kids.

“So I know I can say anything about Christianity or Mormonism, and I’m not living in fear, which is a testament to Christianity and Mormonism, and that’s wonderful. Thank you,” said Zuckerman, who is a self-described atheist and professor of secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif...."

Is this actually hypocrisy? Well, one matter that makes this different is that he isn't 'doing what he said not to do' but rather 'not doing what his thoughts imply'. Another matter is that he is open about the reason for the 'not doing what his thought imply'. Thus, I don't think I can actually call this hypocrisy.

The source for this is here.