Naval Officer who worked in prostitution ring taught leadership and ethics at the Naval Academy

Here is the first part of a newspaper article today on the subject:

A Navy officer who taught a leadership and ethics course at the Naval Academy faces dismissal after she testified Thursday that she moonlighted as an escort for the so-called D.C. Madam.

Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca C. Dickinson, 38, admitted in federal court Thursday that she performed sex acts with men in exchange for money as a call girl for Deborah Jean Palfrey (who is in the image above holding what was purported to be a client list) from October 2005 until April 2006.

I don't know for sure what she taught at the leadership and ethics course but its a safe bet that she told the midshipmen not to do anything reasonably perceivable as unethical.

Well, there you go, a true case of hypocrisy. The damage will be very significant for LCDR Dickinson. She will likely lose rank and be discharged under less than honorable conditions. This will decrease, maybe eliminate whatever pension rights she might have accrued (she has been in the service since 1986 and has been a commissioned officer since 1993).

The damage to society is probably much less. There will likely be extra scrutiny provided to other Naval Academy instructors and other minor effects.

Who is the Hypocrite on Free Trade?

Who isn't?

In the past few weeks, there have been some hypocrisy charges in the matter of the Free Trade Agreement with Columbia (FTA-C).

One set of charges is that opponents of the FTA-C, including representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives and Senator Harry Reid, the President of the US Senate and various labor organizations realize that the FTA-C is good for the US but oppose it anyway because the public mistakenly blames various problems on NAFTA. Part of the reason for this is said to be that elected officials (like Pelosi and Reid) have been demonizing NAFTA for years.

Another set of charges is that individuals in the campaigns of Senators Obama and Clinton actually support free trade agreements but pretend not to in order to keep working for the candidates they support. A interesting variety of this is that the Obama campaign accused the Clinton campaign of hypocrisy even though Obama advisers have basically done similar things.

This is pointed out at the link.

Assuming the Obama campaign realizes this, then yes, they are being hypocrites in accusing the Clinton campaign of hypocrisy.

This is the first case I can recall of a double reverse hypocrisy. Cool.

FWIW:

bloggress Wonkette charged Mark Penn with hypocrisy in talking to Columbia about promoting the FTA-C, while in a leadership role in an anti-NAFTA Clinton campaign; and,

The leftwing MotherJones magazine reported on Obama senior adviser telling Canada that when Obama denounced NAFTA, he (Obama) didn't really mean it.

Materialism for me;

not for thee

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is mentioned below, reportedly made anti-materialism and anti-middle classism part of his sermonizing.

To the left is a retirement home being built for Rev. Wright. According to news reports, it is 10,000 sq feet, will cost about $1.5 million, is being financed mostly by the Church he served and is in a gated community withing the village of Tinley Park in Cook County about 15 miles southwest of the Hyde Park area where the church is. The village of Tinley Park was, per the previous census, about 90% white, about 2% black. It has a mean household income about 50% higher than the US average.

I don't have the exact words of Wright's sermons so one could build a non-hypocrisy case based on parsing the language. Or one could build a case base on the basis that the house is required to be this size and in this location because it will be used to host special church events.

Most likely, however, is that Rev Wright feels he is above his own words. That is, normal people should beware of materialism but people who have a high conscious, like himself, need not fear materialism.

This seems like a case where the only 'victims' are members of his own church.

Keith Olbermann: Hillary must renounce Ferraro Comments but Obama doesn't have to renounce Wright's comments.

Keith Olbermann is the host of an MSNBC TV show. It is opinion show and Olbermann has opinions. There is an group who evidently watch Keith Olbermann's show and write about it providing cases where they disagree with what Olbermann says. This group is called Olbermann Watch.

Obermanwatch has produced a video that shows Mr. Olbermann's comments about former Representative Ferraro's statement to the effect that Senator Obama would not be a serious (or as serious) a candidate if he were not black (she made the comment while serving on a committee in Senator Clinton's campaign). It then shows Mr. Olbermann's comments that essentially defend Senator Obama's decision not to leave the church he belongs to even though Senator Obama admits many of Reverend Wright's statements are wrong, bigotted, etc.

I have a hard time with this because I can't follow Olbermann's logic in either the Clinton-Ferraro case. It could be that Olbermann is being a hypocrite by saying, in effect, that in an identical case, candidate A must do something and candidate B doesn't need to.

In fact the cases are not alike at all. What Ferraro said about the advantage Obama has in being black was very similar, though not identical, to what Obama said about himself. Whereas Wright accused the U.S. of things like promoting drug dealing in black neighborhoods and developing the AIDS virus as a weapon against blacks - statements for which there is no evidence - and indeed don't even make sense.

Thus it seems to me (and I'm not doing a detailed study here because it would require watching a lot of Mr. Olbermann and I would find that quite unpleasant) that Olbermann's behavior here is not so much hypocrisy as meandering incoherence in service to an overarching policy. Thus, since what Olbermann really believes is "all polemics are legitimate in service to whatever people/cause I favor" he is being consistent even when he says, "2+2 doesn't really equal 4".

More to it than Hypocrisy

Well the post below is based on the assumption that there was nothing beyond adultry. The woman on the left is Diane Dixon, a former Olympic athlete (1980s) who claims to have gotten a job recently through then Lt Governor Paterson and to have been in a romantic/sexual relationship with Paterson at some time earlier.

Wouldn't Hyprocrisy Be Better

Earlier today, David Paterson, the new Governor of New York and his wife Michelle, mutually announced that they had both been in multiyear adulterous relationships.

I assume this is because the new Governor has the job Spitzer used to have before his involvement in a prostitution ring was revealed.

Personally, I don't see any hypocrisy and I can't find any angry rants accusing the new Governor of hypocrisy. However, even if David and Michelle had previously campaigned for faithful marriages visiting colleges and high schools, I would not have minded hypocrisy.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:14 PM

Senator Obama and Reverend Wright

One of the posters on Democratic Underground has made the case that Senator Obama (on the left) is a hypocrite with respect to Obama's support of the Reverend Wright,

The specific charge is well stated,

"...You can't publicly preach "unity" and getting beyond race with a "post-racial politics" (and present yourself as the only available vehicle to lead us to this promised land) and then in private endorse for two decades someone (Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the right of the picture) who couldn't be more diametrically opposed to Obama's public rhetoric."

Senator Obama's statement in response to this charge (actually it is a response to the general situation - I'm pretty sure Senator Obama didn't read this particular comment) is essentially the church attender equivalent of the moron defense, that is, "I didn't know the Revered Wright was saying this stuff."

If you assume the moron defense isn't true, it makes Senator Obama a hypocrite in the sense that a lot of politicians are hypocrites. This, in my opinion, may make Senator Obama a better person and maybe a better potential candidate because he is forcing himself to come to terms with the specifics of Reverend Wright's sermons, (e.g., America is bad, America invented the AIDs virus, whites all hate blacks, etc.).

Incidentally the odds that Obama is a hypocrite here is strengthened by another incident, namely the visit which an economic adviser to Obama made to the Canadian consulate in Chicago and allegedly told the Canadians that Obama didn't really mean the anti NAFTA comments he (Obama) made before the Ohio primary.

Senator Obama's response to the controversy was reproduced on the Huffington Post. The response was probably because of mainstream media reports such as one on ABC news.

Here is some of the response in which he denounces "the statements, without noting which they are",

"... Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."

and here is the moron defense,

"...the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn. The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation."

Governor Elliot Spitzer:

He Prosecuted Prostitution Rings; Now He's Caught in One

Naturally, some people are accusing Governor Spitzer (I think he is soon to be ex Governor Spitzer) of being a hypocrite.

One such accusation is at a blog called "Protein Wisdom". Dan Collins, the author of the blog accuses, Spitzer of being, "Mr. American Hypocrite".

Here is what the blog post says,

"... he previously prosecuted — quite aggressively and publicly – several citizens for the “crime” of operating an adult prostitution business. That hypocrisy precludes me from having any real personal sympathy for Spitzer, and no reasonable person could defend him from charges of rank hypocrisy. And he should be treated no differently — no better and no worse — than the average citizen whom law enforcement catches hiring prostitutes. (in the original the underline was a hot link to a political cartoon)"

OK. So what specifically makes Spitzer a hypocrite.

Did he ever say, "No one should ever use prostitutes".

Did he ever say, "No one should ever assist in the transportation of prostitutes across a State Line"

Did he ever say, "No one should ever intentionally transfer funds with the intent of disguising the source of the funds."

Maybe, but Dan Collins gives no example.

What Dan perhaps means is that Spitzer engaged in egregious moral posturing while Attorney General of NY State and now it has been demonstrated that he is culpable of immoral activity.

If so, that would be classified as a lowish level of hypocrisy as it self corrects assuming Spitzer will no doubt resign and leave government in disgrace.

In the image, the Governor's wife is on the left, the Governor on the right. The image was taken at a press conference where the Governor admitted an ambiguous wrong doing and declined to take any questions.

;

Bias or Hypocrisy

Dennis Boyles thinks it is the latter. Here is a section from an article he did for the online version of the National Review (NRO).

"...The problem at the Times isn’t bias, which is always acceptable. It’s hypocrisy. The Times claims to represent a set of journalistic ideals. But their daily practices show a blatant, if situational disregard for the standards of their profession..."

The background is pretty complicated. The New York Times did an article about Senator (and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee) John McCain. The article (which is about 3000 words long and I haven't read it), mentions a series of events in 1999 in which McCain was in the company of a lobbyist for the TV company Univision. The lobbyist is much younger than McCain and, at least in 1999, was very pretty (and bears some resemblance to Mrs McCain). The ombudsman (Clark Hoyt) for the NY Times considered the article to be unfairly implicating McCain in a romantic affair. The ombudsman stated in a front page critique (also published in the NY Times) that the article should not have been published because it was inadequately sourced, that is, there was no evidence whatsoever of a romantic relationship. Mr. Boyle thinks the problem isn't a journalistic mistake but that the deliberate agenda of the NY Times is to hurt conservatives and republicans and promote liberals and democrats and furthermore than the ombudsman knows this, or should know it. Now if Mr. Boyle does think that the NY Times ombudsman is biased against Republicans and is trying to pretend that this bias does not exist, that would be hypocrisy. However, Boyle has no way to see into Mr. Hoyt's mind. Thus, I think the NRO should have adopted an "assuming..." point. The NRO did give some evidence that the NY Times is biased, namely that a previous ombudsman said that it was a liberal paper. However, this does not demonstrate very much about Mr. Hoyt. Charge unproved. Here is the URL for Boyle's article:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTRhYTlhYTAxNWJjMjZiNTZjNzNiMDQzZjFmOTAxNWE=

and as a follow up, a robopoll (the Rasmussen company uses computers to call and take input) shows, "...By a 50% to 18% margin, liberal voters have a favorable opinion of the paper. By a 69% to 9%, conservative voters offer an unfavorable view. The newspaper earns favorable reviews from 44% of Democrats, 9% of Republicans, and 17% of those not affiliated with either major political story...."

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/24_have_favorable_opinion_of_new_york_times

Jailbird Wants to Pray - Hypocrisy is the charge

A blogger in Baltimore, who is also attending law school as well as blogging and trying to be a practicing orthodox Jew, has posted an entry accusing either an individual or possibly a group of people as hypocrites. The only case he cites is that of an orthodox Jew convicted of major fraud who is suing the State Corrections Department for refusing to accommodate his request for an appropriate place to pray. The convict apparently maintains that he is unable to pray from his cell because there is a toilet in it rendering the location unsuitable for Jewish prayer under Jewish religious law. The poster does not dispute the fact that the understanding of the convict regarding Jewish law is correct. Instead he mocks the request of the convict with an accusation of hypocrisy.

Here is his accusation of hypocrisy:

"...I fail to understand how these people can be so Machmir in all aspects of life, but when it comes to money, they feel that they can do whatever they please. TAXES?! Who pays taxes? To a Goyishe government!? The hypocrisy in which these people live their lives is astonishing.

I would like to believe that Hashem doesn't as readily accept the prayers of people who live their lives seeped in such hypocrisy as he does mine and yours...."

This hypocrisy accusation, like so many others, doesn't specify exactly what actions (or statements) are associated with hypocrisy. Even worse, in this case, the charge of hypocrisy seems to be made against an undefined group ("these people") .

If I were being generous, I would guess that the accuser meant to say that people who adopt a highly public 'holier than thou' persona are hypocrites when they commit highly public, egregious and substantial crimes. If this is the case, it would be a case of hypocrisy but only to the annoying or minimally dangerous level (as I defined those levels back on August 31, 2003).

However, if I were being less generous, I would have to say this is an example of poor thinking. A reasonable way of interpreting the accusation is to think the accuser meant that persons who wish to be rigorously correct in their ritual practice must be completely law abiding in their civic affairs. Now, here is the problem. I doubt that anyone, other than perhaps babies and nursing home patients is completely law abiding. I estimate that more than 99% of everyone who drives disobeys the 'come to a complete stop at a stop sign' rule. I estimate a similar percentage of people who regularly go for a walk, violate the litter law at some time. Similarly huge percentages of people use a pen from the office at home, etc. Would such civil crimes merit the charge of hypocrisy if they were performed by persons who were otherwise rigorously correct in their ritual practice. I'm betting the accuser would not make the hypocrisy charge in this case.

Perhaps the thought of someone else being a hypocrite is so strong that it turns the brain of otherwise clear thinking persons into mush.

The blog of the Baltimore law student is:
http://alanlaz.blogspot.com/

The Baltimore law student's post for Feb 18, 2008 refers to an article two days earlier in the New York Times. This article is at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/us/16prison.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1203337704-hUa5prXK2zW6M82ORqRa3A&oref=slogin

Did he really think it was a nice hat.

Here is a trivial case of hypocrisy, assuming it really was hypocrisy.

Today, a US Congressman complimented me on my hat. If he didn't mean it, it was just a trivial case, like asking "how are you?". when you don't actually want to know.

here is the entry from the Weiss Chronicle Blog

Thursday, December 06, 2007

"Nice Hat." said the Congressman

Today I was briefing a Congressman on something. In the introductory smalltalk I noted that I had never been in an office with a stuffed warthog (he had not just a stuffed warthog but a stuffed bear, a stuffed lion and about 6 stuffed deer, ibex, etc. After my brief I was putting on my coat and hat (which were needed because today was really, really cold with snow on the ground) and the Congressman said, "Nice Hat" (I was wearing the one that is felt and you can fold and bend it).

So on the way home I noted to the people that I was with that this was the first time I ever got a compliment from a Congressman about my hat.

"and you think its sincere?" asked one of the people.

I responded that I had a hard time believing a US Congressman thinks its worthwhile to use insincere compliments to win a favor from a mid level bureaucrat.

Was Maimonides a Hypocrite (in the "Letter to Yemen")

I take a class on Monday evenings. This evening we were studying the Letter (a.k.a., Epistle) to Yemen. It addresses the same overarching problem as one Maimonides wrote earlier which has come to be called the "Letter on Martyrdom". In the Martyrdom letter, the Jews of N. Africa were being oppressed and forced to convert to Islam by a Sunni sect. In the Yemen letter, the Jews of Yemen were being oppressed and forced to covert to Islam by a Shiite sect. In the former case, Maimonides address the issue of whether martyrdom is required religiously. In the latter case, he addresses the religious and theological significance of the oppression.

In the Yemen letter he states at one point that the oppression yields the benefit of removing from Judaism, those who are either not pious or not pure descendants of the revelation at Sinai. This sounds unkind, (even a bit like a Lord Vodermort speech), to our modern sensibility.

I guess that most of the class and maybe most people who've read this believe that Maimonides was making a pastoral (or polemic) point and didn't really believe it. The goal would have been to comfort the people in Yemen.

If so, this is hypocrisy. However, it is the good kind.

Roy Nagin - Vote advocate but non Voter

New Orleans has a mayor named Roy Nagin whose administration has been criticized by the people of New Orleans for, among other things, corruption and incompetence immediately before, during and after Hurricane Katrina's landfall in southern Louisiana (2005).

New Orleans had an primary election on October 20, 2007. Turnout was low (about 20%) and Mayor Nagin stated,

"It was kind of offensive to me, because here I am busting my butt every day and all I'm asking citizens to do is to plug into the democratic process....Take 20 minutes of your time (refering to the general election on Nov 17) and decide...Don't just let this thing happen without you voicing your opinion."

It appears that Nagin did not vote in the Oct 20 primary (nor in district voting in March and May of 2007). As of now, it was not possible to determine whether Nagin had voted in the Nov 17 election but the total turnout actually fell from the 26% number in the primary to 20%.

If it turns out that Nagin did not vote in the Nov 17 election, he is definitely a hypocrite but it is proably not a very important piece of hypocrisy since apparently the voters are already on to him.

The Times Picayune article on this is at:

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1196145686303810.xml&coll=1

Columnist vs Columnist

A Columnist for the Washington Post (E.J.Dionne) called Mark Steyn (also a columnist but not for the Washington Post) a "meanie and hypocrite" (actually I think they are both syndicated columnists).

Steyn accepts the 'meanie' but rejects the hypocrite label.

This has to do with discussion of the case of the Frost family of Baltimore. One of the 4 Frost children (age 12) read a rebuttal to President Bush on the issue of some legislation extending government paid health care to wealthier families than currently are eligible.

The details on the legislation are pretty arcane; however, the Frost family is currently ineligible for these health care benefits but would (I'm presuming) be eligible under the legislation.

Several bloggers soon pointed out that the Frost family owns 3 vehicles (a sedan and van and a pick up truck), two properties and a business and somehow is able to afford to send some (possibly all four) children to private school.

Dionne thinks (as I understand it), that because Republicans (or right wingers) are generally in favor of tax payer reimbursed religious or charter school or private school education, criticizing the Frost family for wanting the govt to pick up it's health care bill is hypocrisy.

Obviously, Dionne is using very sloppy logic (and no substantive fact finding) here.

First, he somehow assumes that all Republicans (or right wingers) think the same on these issues. That's obviously false. If you accuse an individual of hypocrisy of belief, you have to look at what they believe rather than what there political party believes.

Second, he somehow confuses the issue of govt subsidy for private/charter/religious school for govt subsidy for a specific type of health care. If an individual supports the former, it, in no way requires the individual to support the latter. In fact, Steyn does not support govt subsidy of the type the Frosts are seeking for himself (Steyn has no policy on it that I can tell). This is similar to the other blogger Dionne specifically names.

No hypocrisy here; just journalistic sloppiness.

I will not be addressing the 'meaness' issue.

The Washington Post column by Dionne is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101101601.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

The response by Steyn is at:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjJhYjdlMGI5MWNkMWQwMTEwZjVhNmI0MmFiY2ZlZjg=

A response by another person (Michelle Maukin) criticised by Dionne is at:
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/10/12/question-for-grown-ups-who-deserves-government-subsidized-health-insurance/

The Rolling Stones Accused Neo Cons of Hypocrisy (I think)

Here are the lyrics to the 2005 song "Sweet Neo Con" (from the title one might think it was praise):


"You call yourself a Christian I think that you're a hypocrite You say you are a patriot I think that you're a crock of shit

And listen now, the gasoline I drink it every day But it's getting very pricey And who is going to pay How come you're so wrong My sweet neo con....

Yeah It's liberty for all 'Cause democracy's our style Unless you are against us Then it's prison without trial

But one thing that is certain Life is good at Haliburton If you're really so astute You should invest at Brown & Root....

Yeah How come you're so wrong My sweet neo con If you turn out right I'll eat my hat tonight Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah....

It's getting very scary Yes, I'm frightened out of my wits There's bombers in my bedroom Yeah and it's giving me the shits

We must have lots more bases To protect us from our foes Who needs these foolish friendships We're going it alone How come you're so wrong.

My sweet neo con Where's the money gone In the Pentagon Yeah ha ha ha Yeah, well, well Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

I'm almost completely missing this. Is one individual being accused or is it a corporate accusation. If it is a corporate accusation (the song mentions Halliburton and Brown and Root (the latter was, at the time of the song, a subsidiary of the former), it seems silly because, first, a fair number of neo cons are either Jewish, or aetheist or are Christian without identifying with Christianity. In fact, I am having a difficult time thinking of any individual who is a self identified Christian who is also a neocon.

The lyrics were from the website:

http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/536089.html

If no Fritos for thee, then maybe none for me

I owe a thanks to the WSJournal Opinion Journal for pointing me to a story from the greater Salt Lake City area.

It seems that students had been restricted in the amount and type of junk food allowed to be purchased in the school. In a decision, apparently motivated, at least partly, by the consideration of hypocrisy, teachers also had their access to junk food from faculty room vending machines severely restricted.

The article is at:

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695208261,00.html

In a sense, those teachers who would restrict student access to vending machine snacks but would not restrict teacher access to those same snacks are guilty of a hypocrisy. But I would regard this as the hypocrisy you need to get through the day.

There are clearly some things to which access to minors must be restricted as a matter of policy. Minors must not be allowed to buy alcohol or vote because that is the law and the law is based on a thought that minors can't handle the type of decisionmaking involved. Whether this thought is correct or not is besides the point.

Additionally, the WSJ discussion of this article points out that teachers may assign homework to students but not the other way around.

The WSJ site is the Sept 10, 2007 edition of:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

Edwards - Again and another Sexual Immorality Case

Former Senator Edwards is reported to have said that the US should fight global warming by people giving up SUV's (I don't have a direct quote - the news reports have a paraphrase). Back on Feb 2, 2007, I examined the case of the 28,000 square foot house recently constructed for John Edwards (it sits on a 100+ acre estate). That was in connection with the fact that the Edwards campaign was based on rallying the poor against their rich exploiters. This is sufficiently similar that I'll not examine it again.

Also, back on Aug 20, I looked again at the case of a family-values politico who was accused of sexual immorality. A similar charge (and guilty plea) has occurred against another family values politico, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID). Again, this is sufficiently similar that I'll not examine it in depth. I will say that conservative columnist Ann Coulter (whose work I generally do not read), did make this issue the subject of a column. I found her analysis on this basically sound although it is a bit difficult to get to the analysis because it is surrounded by polemic (which I suppose is what draws readers). She commented, "Did Craig propose marriage to the undercover cop? If not, I'm not seeing the "hypocrisy."

The cop's report of the Lewd (or disorderly) conduct charge against Senator Craig is at:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0828071craig1.html

The report of the SUV comment is at:

http://www.wlos.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.nc/22b7034c-www.wlos.com.shtml

and a nice picture of the Edwards estate with several SUVs parked in one of the 4 parking areas on the estate at:

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u128/sapguy_us/EdwardsHome.jpg

The Coulter column is at: http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi and is dated Sept 5, 2007 and titled, "Cruising While Republican".

Parsing Hypocrisy on Sexual Immorality

Steve Landsburg, an economic professor, writing at Slate.com (an online journal now owned by the Washington Post but once owned by Microsoft) has an post with the title "Parsing Hypocrisy".

He has started down approximately the same path as this blog with an attempt to clearly define hypocrisy. The twist in his definition is that it is down from an economics viewpoint.

He takes the case of a Florida legislator who was caught doing something illegal and sexually immoral. This same legislator sponsored legislation making it easier to convict people of lewd and lascivious behaviour.

Professor Landsburg, has (as have I) considerable trouble determining whether or not this is hypocrisy because he isn't sure of the motive of the individual.

Landsburg's blog is:

http://www.slate.com/id/2172282/fr/flyout

For what it is worth, I have covered this approximate issue before (in Oct 2006 with respect to former US representative Mark Foley). In that case I made the point that perhaps Foley (who verbally solicited homoerotic activity with pages while coauthoring legislation to expand the criminalization of child pornography) was acting from the knowledge that he himself was enticed by homoeroticism and wanted to help others resist the temptation.

Post Script

On Aug 21, I wrote to Dr. Landsburg telling him I was commenting on his article on this blog and telling him about the Oct 2006 post regarding US Rep Foley.

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:11:44 -0400 (EDT)

I received this message.

"Steven E. Landsburg" wrote:

Thanks for sharing your blog post on hypocrisy. You make a good
point, and you make it well.


SL

More From Laurie David (Greenhouse Gas Hypocrisy)

I discussed this a bit on April 23.

At that time, I was not entirely sure whether Laurie David (or Sheryl Crow) believed in carbon offsets as a legitimate way of compensating for egregious consumption of energy intensive products and services, most egregiously of all the private jet travel (obviously the resulting carbon dioxide is substantial).

Apparently, the Guardian did an article on Laurie David (dated in the fall of 2006 but seeming to begin in 2004 - I can't figure out the date of any actual interviews - although the article seems based on an interview or maybe several interviews).

In this Guardian article (which is sympathetic to Ms David), she doesn't mention purchasing offsets. Instead at one point in the interview,

"...She has been dubbed a Gulfstream liberal for flying occasionally in a private jet, and castigated for her second home on Martha's Vineyard. "It's so easy to marginalise people," she says in self-defence. "Yes, I take a private plane on holiday a couple of times a year, and I feel horribly guilty about it. I probably shouldn't do it. But the truth is, I'm not perfect. This is not about perfection. I don't expect anybody else to be perfect either. That's what hurts the environmental movement - holding people to a standard they cannot meet. That just pushes people away.""

So apparently whether or not she buys offsets, she has some feeling that the offset is not adequate compensation for the carbon dioxide emissions of her private jet (or 2nd home or the extra emissions because her first home is so gigantic).

Instead, she defends (I'm not entirely sure she means this as a defense - clearly the author of the Guardian article considers it so) herself by saying people shouldn't expect her to be perfect. That would seem to be reasonable except I don't think people expect that at all. I assume that at least some people simply expect her to reduce her emissions to, say, only about 4 or 5 times the average for Americans instead of the 50-100 times they are now (I don't have an audit, I'm guessing here).

Anyway the Guardian article is at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/nov/18/weekendmagazine.usnews

John Edwards and the money from Murdoch

Roger Simon, a very popular blogger, calls former Senator Edwards a Hypocritonissimo. He does this because, in edition to the large house issue (see Feb 2007 post on this site), Edwards has been critical of other candidates for accepting campaign donations from Rupper Murdoch while himself taking funds from Murdoch as part of a book publishing deal.

The Roger Simon link is:

http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2007/08/hypocritonissim.php

and the story Roger Simon was commenting on was from a NY Post story in which Edwards states that part of the funds (reimbursement for expenses) he took from Murdoch ($300k) were provided to charity (although declining to provide records to back the assertion). Edwards does not claim that the $800k he received for royalties was provided to charities. In contrast to this, Edwards criticized Senator Clinton for receiving $20k in campaign contributions.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08032007/news/nationalnews/edwards_in_a_biz_hate__witch_nationalnews_charles_hurt__bureau_chief.htm


Senator Edwards also claimed (a few weeks ago) that he accepted a job (about $800k as a rainmaker) with a Hedge Fund to learn more about poverty.

As I noted before, I have a difficult time commenting on this because Sen Edwards makes my flesh crawl.

I will say I don't know why Simon should say that whatever hypocrisy Edwards is guilty of is dangerous. People have been using the poverty issue for their own ego feeding or for scams for many years.