Governor Howard Dean's Records.

Former governor and current candidate for the Dem nomination for President, Howard Dean, has been very critical of the lack of public availability of files of the VP Dick Cheney energy task force, certain 9/11 documents, etc. However, he has made his own records as Governor secret for 10 years which is 4 years longer than any previous VT governor.

An article (with an incredibly unflattering picture of Governor Dean) is at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/999347.asp

So, this is obviously a case of doing what you say shouldn't be done, i.e., hypocrisy. Next question is how serious is it. In my opinion, it is probably not serious. First, because it is easily correctable, second because whatever is in the records is about Vermont and how important can that be. By the way, the records of the energy task force are probably also unimportant. People spoke with other people, blah, blah. They made recommendations. Some were followed by the administration, some were not. So what.

A new twist - Financial Hypocrisy in Europe

Back in 1997, the European Union agreed on a new unified currency, began work on a unified constitution (not yet done) and other similar things. To make this all work, the countries agreed that their annual budget deficit would be no more than 3% of GDP (this about the current level of the deficit in the US). Year after year, the leaders in the EU said this was the way to make Europe work. Obviously they didn't mean what they said. This week, the EU board gave Germany and France permission to exceed this amount.

An excellent summary of this appears in Slate at: http://slate.msn.com/id/2091727/

General Clark yet again.

Slate has another article on General Clark.
It is at http://slate.msn.com/id/2091467/

The article is called "Hughpocrisy". Clark's former boss, General Hugh Shelton had, a few months ago, made a statement implying unethical behaviour by Clark but refused to elaborate leaving Clark unable to respond. Last week, Clark made a similar statement implying the he (Clark) had been removed as a CNN commentator unethically but refusing to elaborate leaving CNN unable to respond.

As they say, hypocrisy is the complement that vice gives to virtue. But they also say, "If you can't beat it, join it". I think the latter applies to last weeks comments by General Clark.

General Clark meets with Ben and JLo

At a fundraiser on 11/17 where the Eagles sang Hotel California (apparently a favorite of General Clark), Ben and J Lo met with Clark for about 15 minutes. Of course, they could have been discussing anything (maybe marriage since General Clark has been married to the same woman for about 30 years). If I applied the usual rules of hypocrisy to Ben and J Lo that I do to elected officials, acedemic officials and the like, I wouldn't have enough time to even begin to analyze the various contradictions, insincere remarks and other things coming from what hollywood sometimes calls Beniffer. This was all reported in the Washington Post Style section page 3.

Slate writer defend General Clark

Today's webzine Slate had an article that begins:

------------------------------------
Defending the General
The New Yorker's unfair slam on Wes Clark and his role in the Kosovo war.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003, at 4:13 PM PT

What's so bad about winning a war?

I don't know whether Gen. Wesley Clark is qualified to be president, but Peter J. Boyer's profile in this week's New Yorker—which paints him as scarily unqualified—is an unfair portrait as well as a misleading...
-------------------------------------

The URL is: http://slate.msn.com//?id=2091194&

The charge of hypocrisy is not addressed. Basically, the article takes charges in the New Yorker article (e.g., Clark's fellow generals hate him and so did his boss the Secretary of Defense) and says, 'So what.'.

If you are a fan of hypocrisy, Wesley Clark is a gift that keeps giving.

General Clark sort of says something

The New Yorker had a long interview (Nov 17 issue which recently went partially on line) and article with General Clark in which the hypocrisy charge (noted on Oct 29) was raised.

The URL is:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031117fa_fact

General Clark's defense against the charge of hypocrisy is confusing. He admits that the war in Kosovo was not legally sanctioned (using the same standards he applies in Iraq). He continues to defend the was in Kosovo as justified (obviously he has to do this because of his role in the war). He first says that the Kosovo war was legal because of the threat to civilians in Kosovo but since everyone agrees that civilians were threatened (actually tortured and murdered) by Saddam, this justification falls apart. General Clark then says that the war in Iraq was fought under false pretenses. It isn't clear what he means by this since, he is on record as supporting the various justifications, e.g., he stated before the war that Iraq's potential WMD was a threat, he stated that humanitarian reasons for regime change were important, etc.

In sum, the defense against the charge of hypocrisy seems to be to just keep talking, get into tangential subjects, change the subject, etc.

Not very convincing.

No response from Wesley Clark

As I noted on October 29, General Wesley Clark was charged with hypocrisy by one of the MSN Slate e-columnists. The charge was straightforward.

As I noted on November 1, General Clark had not responded.

Today, I spent some time on the Wesley Clark for President site: http://www.clark04.com/

I couldn't find any response to the charge.

Conclusion: General Clark doesn't think this specific type of a hypocrisy is a big deal. No reporters ask him about this either so maybe the press doesn't think it a big deal either.

An Editorial on Liberal Hypocrisy by a Liberal

The Guardian (British newspaper) published an opinion piece.

The title is:

Mind the gap

Julie Burchill
Saturday November 1, 2003
The Guardian

The URL of the piece is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1075241,00.html

The opinion piece begins like this:

---------------------------------------------------------
I think I've mentioned before my absolute loathing of what I think of as "hipocrisy". Old-fashioned hypocrisy is bad enough, but my pet hate, spelt with an "i", is far, far worse. Basically, it's what Our Side does; and as we think of ourselves as the opposite of hypocrites - because we're hip! - it's twice as bad. Traditionally, we enlightened types like to think of hypocrites as Those People ....
---------------------------------------------------------

Ms. Burchill goes on to enumerate a number of specific examples of hypocrisy.
She mentions 5 entertainment celebrities, two British politicians and former President Clinton.

Her charges against these people are basically that they are all 'do what I say not what I do' people.

Her specific charge against one entertainer is that she is critical of divorse in the abstract and married to a divorced user of illegal drugs. If this were hypocrisy, nearly everyone would be guilty because nearly everyone is against breaking the law and nearly everyone commits minor crimes every week (petty littering, failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign).

Her specific charge against former President Clinton is that he advocated human decency and yet his personal life had indecent things in it (her actual words are more specific and refer to a sexual incident about which I'm not knowledgeable of the exact details). I'm not a cheerleader for Clinton but gee wiz, what is the President of the US supposed to do, advocate indecency?

In brief, I find her piece someone weak.

I'm also puzzled why anyone cares about hypocrisy in entertainers. Do people expect philosophy and lucid social thinking from entertainers? I'll grant that they are a lower danger hypocrisy but so what.

The end of her opinion piece is a warning of the danger of the hypocrisy of silence regarding the abuse of women in Islamic countries. I've covered the hypocrisy of silence previously on Sept 20, 2003.

Nothing from General Clark in response to the charge of hypocrisy made 4 days ago.

Hypocrisy is not a 'guilty unless explained' kind of thing. If Clark doesn't respond to the charges, it doesn't make him an automatic hypocrite, nor does it get him off the hypocrite hook.
If he doesn't respond in a few more days, well, I'll just have to analyze it without him.

A candidate charged with hypocrisy.


MSN's Slate webzine had an article (oct 28) entitled,

Clark's hypocritical obstructionism on Iraq.
By William Saletan

the website of the post is: http://slate.msn.com/id/2090437/

The upshot of the article (written by an individual who doesn't like President Bush) was that in 1999, General Wesley Clark defended the military action in Bosnia by saying that if we display weakness in Bosnia, the dictators will survive to ruin more lives and a whole region of Europe. In 2003, General Clark is (at least lately) saying we should leave Iraq asap and spend as little as possible to rebuild Iraq. This, in the writer's eye, makes General Clark a hypocrite.

The article is recent and General Clark deserves some time to defend himself so I'll wait until then to do analysis. General Clark could assert that there are key differences between the Bosnian and the Iraq situation (although the only one I can see easily is that in Bosnia, the American action was almost all air power and also in Bosnia the dictator's forces were less evil). He could also assert that he has learned things from Bosnia and changed his mind (although politicians rarely do that). General Clark could also say that leaving Iraq asap with as little reconstruction as possible is not showing weakness because we did remove Saddam's government from power. I would predict General Clark tries the 'there is a big difference between Bosnia and Iraq' defense but we'll see.

The unintentional hypocrisy of the Easterblogg.

In addition to all the previous exceptions and nuances, there is another one I've discovered recently. It comes about when you imply something you don't mean to imply. Thus even though you are saying something you don't believe in (nominal hypocrisy), it was unintentional. Certainly if you correct your error soon enough, it ought not to count as hypocrisy.

Here is what happened recently.

A well known writer named Greg Easterbrook writes for a number of companies. One of his venues is a blog hosted by the New Republic (which also hosted the a discussion of the hatred President Bush among the left - discussed in my post below of Oct 13, 2003).

In his blog (called the Easterblogg), Mr Easterbrook uses language that evokes the antisemitism of the medieval variety. This use of language is considered, by nearly everyone, to have been an error and unintended. The causes of the error include the haste with which it was written as well as the attempt to convey too many thoughts with too few words.

The New Republic apologized for the error at this site: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=editorial102003.

Gregg Easterbrook apologized for the error on the October 16 entry of his blog: http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml.

The original offensive language appears on the October 13 entry of his blog

It seems he basically said that Jews were moneygrubbers while not meaning what he said. This, as noted, is nominal hypocrisy. However, he clearly and unabiguously apologized (while leaving the original language appear - many people just remove mistakes and pretend they never happened). The vast majority of people believe his apology. He ended up losing money since the Disney Corporation, which didn't like him for other reasons, used the mistake to fire him from ESPN (a Disney owned subsidiary).

Today, the Washington Post has an article quoting, at length, the Sept article in the New Republic that I discussed on Oct 13.

The post article is at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46805-2003Oct18?language=printer

The word 'hypocrisy' doesn't occur in the article. There is also considerable discussion about the difference between Clinton hatred, Nixon hatred and Bush hatred.

Somebody asks himself the hypocrisy question

In an online column Oct 15, 2003, David Frum who writes on political issues in books (one book made the best seller list) and articles titles an hotlink “Am I a Hypocrite”. The link directed article (available at: http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp - see the Oct 15, 2003 entry) seems to be a response to an article by a columnist from the Chicago Tribune. Frum feels the Tribune article calls Frum a hypocrite.

The basis of the hypocrisy charge is that Frum, a Republican, did not condemn Governor Elect Arnold Schwartzenegger on sex abuse but that in the past Frum had done so with former President Clinton. Embedded in this is the assumption that Frum must either believe that sex abuse makes one disqualified from serving in high office (in which case his silence on Schwartzenegger is a case of hypocrisy by silence) or must believe that sex abuse does not disqualify one in which case his condemnation of Clinton is a case of hypocrisy.

I don’t have a comprehensive list of all of Frum’s statements about Clinton, nor Frum’s statements about Schwartzenegger, however, Frum defends himself citing the differences between the two cases. Examples follow:

1.Clinton was an elected official when the sex abuse took place, Arnold was an actor when the sex abuse took place
2. Clinton used government personnel to cover up or facilitate the abuse.
3. In one case (in Arkansas), rape and battery have been alleged.
4. In Clinton’s case, there was false testimony to a grand jury

Now, personally, I’m confused about the charge itself. Condemnation of anyone, be it a President, a governor, an actor, can be over a wide range. Condemning someone does not mean saying they are necessarily unfit for office. Furthermore, condemning an act is somewhat different than condemning a person. Finally, condemnation is frequently based on more than one incident.

In short, I can’t make sense out of either the charge against Frum nor Frum’s defense of himself.

Another case of non hypocrisy because of creeping insanity

A remarkable case of self confessed creeping insanity was published by the left wing weekly "The New Republic" in its Sept 18 edition. The e-version is available at:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=gfI/vvY5VZirXupcsQoN5m

In a fairly long article, the well known, highly knowledgeable and highly analytic Jonathan Chait tells why he hates President George Bush. Here is a section which includes a quote indicating that this hatred is not uncommon:

".... I hate the way he walks--shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks--blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo-populist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing-- a way to establish one's social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.

There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche. Nor is this phenomenon limited to my personal experience: Pollster Geoff Garin, speaking to The New York Times, called Bush hatred "as strong as anything I've experienced in 25 years now of polling."..."

now here is an apparent example of hypocrisy

"...Combined with his stated desire to eliminate virtually all taxes on capital income and to privatize Medicare and Social Security, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that Bush would like to roll back the federal government to something resembling its pre-New Deal state...."

No one thinks Bush wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security. It is true that Bush has advocated that people have the option of privately managing part of their Social security account (it is also true that there are many problems with this concept) but that is hardly the same thing as privatizing it. As for the rolling back the federal government to pre New Deal, the idea is laughable. One of the signature efforts of the Bush administration is a prescription drug benefit program which would be an enormous increase in the size and cost of government. Now there are many problems with this idea but none of them relates to a decrease in the roll of the federal government. Similarly, Bush does not advocate a significant decrease in the major role the federal government has taken in the past 70 years in education, health care, welfare, law enforcement, etc. Indeed, with respect to the latter issue the Bush administration proposes an increase in the role of the federal government in law enforcement (amendments to the Patriot Act). Now these amendments may be a good idea, they may be a bad idea, but they are certainly not a roll back in the federal government. Mr. Chait surely knows this with part of his brain. Now apparently because the rest of his brain is slowing becoming infected with hatred, I think this knowledge is being drowned out (although several months ago it would not have been drowned out).

Thus Mr. Chait has to be considered innocent of hypocrisy by virtue of the creeping insanity of his hatred of President Bush.

Not hypocrisy by reason of emotion

Just a few hours ago, there was another suicide bomber in Haifa. About 20 people were murdered. In the wake of this, lots of Israelis say to expel Arafat. Others say that expelling Arafat will lead to more murders of this kind. Both groups are seemingly sure of themselves.

The IDF, which has a large knowledge base says that expelling Arafat would likely do little to reduce these murders in the short term and might or might not increase them in the longer term.

The people (in the first paragraph) who say they are sure know about the IDF opinion. So how can they say what they don't believe or at least don't have a rational belief. I think the answer is that their emotions are interfering with their cognition. Anger has a way of doing that and I have had personnal experience with it. In fact when I read about the suicide bombing my first reaction was anger.

Once, at work, I strongly advocated (for a week) policy that I knew would be useless and would actually negatively impact my own interests because of an emotional issue. It took me a weekend to realize what I was doing.

Author of much googled 'Hypocrisy' essay dies

On Sept 02, 2003 I wrote about the Hypocrisy essay by Edward Said. A few days ago, Edward Said died. None of the obits that I read mentioned the hypocrisy essay. Virtually all of them mentioned the book Orientalism and its enormous influence in the field of Middle East Studies. A few mentioned that the book that the book had numerous egregious errors in it.

I didn't see any obits that mentioned that on Sept 11, 2001, the Nation published a piece by Edward Said in which he complained, in essence, that the bogeyman of Islamic terrorism really didn't exist. Hypocrisy by silence is, as noted below in the case of Republicans who remain silent on the problem of the deficit, not classifiable as hyposrisy at all by the strict rules I set out in early Sept 2003. It is also, apparently, more common than I had thought.

Republican Silence on the Deficit; does it count as hypocrisy?

There is no dispute that the US has an enormous budget deficit. The current year estimated deficit will likely be about $500 billion or more than $2000 per capita. Democrats criticize President Bush pretending that many factors beyond the President’s control are actually within his control and pretend that deficits are making the unemployment problem worse. This is an ordinary hypocrisy and I’m not going to elaborate on it. The Republican response to the deficit is different. Basically it amounts to not saying anything. If a Democrat was President, there is little doubt the Republicans would be constantly pointing to the deficit, constantly analyzing the deficit, constantly discussing the deficit, etc. Now, for hypocrisy to be in effect, the Republicans would have to believe that deficits are bad (not much doubt here) and the big deficits are very bad (even less doubt) and for the Republicans to say what they don’t believe. The second of these conditions could be considered not met since, as noted, the basic Republican tactic is to say nothing. It seems wrong to let the Republicans have a pass on the hypocrisy charge but by my definitions back on August 31, I don’t think I could credibly charge them with hypocrisy.

If it were hypocrisy, this would be at least a moderately dangerous hypocrisy and possibly substantially dangerous hypocrisy since accumulating deficits will hinder the actions of future Presidents (maybe even the current President). However, it is only fair to say that, at the moment, as the US is coming out of recession and with even some threat of deflation, the huge deficit is not harmful. Once employment starts to rise and business is tempted to invest in large capacity additions, a huge deficit will be a problem. It is not a good sign that while the Democrats won’t acknowledge the ‘at the moment’ proposition, the Republicans won’t acknowledge the ‘once employment starts to rise’ element.

The Johnny Cash exception to the Hypocrisy of pretending to be what you’re not..

Earlier this week I heard that Johnny Cash had died. He was a singer who won 11 grammy awards, whose records sold over 50 million and who is one of only 3 people in both the Rock and Roll and Country Music halls of fame. One of his first hit songs was one called “I walk the line”. The lyrics are:
-------------------------
I WALK THE LINE
Johnny Cash

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine,
I keep my eyes wide open all the time,
I keep the ends out for the ties that bind,
Because you're mine, I walk the line.

I find it very, very easy to be true,
I find myself alone when each day is through,
Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you,
Because you're mine, I walk the line.

You've got a way to keep me on your side,
You give me cause for love that I can't hide,
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide,
Because you're mine I walk the line.

As sure as night is dark and day is light,
I keep you on my mind both day and night,
And happiness proves that I'm right,
Because you're mine I walk the line.

The song is either about avoiding adultery or about avoiding sin in general. The lyrics, taken in isolation, seem to be a statement that the singer will avoid adultery or sin.

This would, on its face be an example of hypocrisy. It is known that Johnny Cash was a flawed individual. He was arrested many times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. He intentionally overused amphetamines, barbiturates and alcohol. He drove recklessly causing many accidents. He commited adultery. This all happened after he wrote the song and started singing it (in the mid 1950s). Was he a hypocrite? The answer is ‘no’. To understand this, one has to listen to the song rather than read the lyrics. If you listen to the song, it is obvious that he is not bragging about his ability to resist sin; he is praying for the ability to resist it.

The MECHA situation – who is the hypocrite and what type of hypocrisy is it?

The current LT Governor of California is Cruz Bustamante who is running for Governor in a special election. When he was a student at Fresno State University in the 70s, Mr. Bustamante was active in a group called Movimiento Estudaiantil Chicano de Aztlan (a.k.a. MECHA or MEChA). At the time, MECHA had a number of slogans that could easily be translated ‘For the Race Everything, for others Nothing’ (other translations are possible), another slogan “We are a bronze people with a bronze culture” and a slogan that implies that the southwest US (known in MECHA literature as Aztlan) should be an independent country and the home of the bronze people and others should leave it.

LT Governor Bustamante has had numerous chances to renounce these slogans. He hasn’t. He also hasn’t tried to say that the slogans mean anything other than what they seem to mean. He has instead said that the slogans are not important but that MECHA was and is a nice social club. Is he a hypocrite? Well, if he believes that the slogans are simply recreational racism then he isn’t a hypocrite (personally, I don’t think they are just recreational racism; I think they have enormously harmful consequences). He should however, if he wants to clarify the situation, say that he believes recreational racism is harmless. Obviously, he does not want to clarify the situation.

However, the big media (newspapers and local TV stations) have not been trying to clarify the situation. I think the big media are fully conscious of the fact that the slogans are racist. They are fully conscious of the fact that the slogans are still an integral part of MECHA. The big media probably also think that these racist slogans are harmful. They are, however, acting as if the racist slogans aren’t harmful. This is hypocrisy. Is it necessary hypocrisy? I suppose they may think they would lose some advertising revenue if they reported honestly on the subject but that doesn’t make the hypocrisy necessary. I would categorize it as a minimal (TYPE 3) hypocrisy because MECHA can easily renounce its own slogans, because the violence and hatred created by these slogans has been minimal and because the idea of a bronze race is so idiotic that no rational person could actually believe it.

A place to see the early history of the MECHA slogan is at: http://aintnobaddude.com/2003_09_07_aintnobaddude_archive.html#106313585587252895
SLATE’s Kausfiles at: http://slate.msn.com/id/2088021/ ending about Sept 8, 2003 have considerable analysis and links to this story.

The U of Michigan Affirmative Action Case - Is there hypocrisy and if so what type is it?

A well-known case is the Supreme Court (hence Scourt) decision on the matter of quotas and affirmative action at the University of Michigan (hence UMich) undergraduate University and the UMich Law School. Based on the comments in the opinion of Judge Ginsburg, I assume all the justices knew that the UMich was practicing quotas fairly blatantly in the undergraduate case and sneakily in the Law School. The final ruling said that the blatant practice of quotas was unconstitutional but not the sneaky practice of quotas. Since the judges surely do not think the Constitution requires sneakiness, I take this as an example of hypocrisy. The question is what kind of hypocrisy is it?

The argument that it was necessary hypocrisy (Type #1 Hypocrisy 'necessary' see August 31, 2003) goes something like this: if the decision had been non-hypocritical, anti constitution rhetoric would have ensued damaging the country. Another argument would have been that since Universities have enormous resources to develop sneaky tactics, saying sneakiness in admissions is unconstitutional would have eventually taken the SCourt into enforcement issues where it couldn't reasonably go.

I think better arguments exist that it was either minimal or moderate hypocrisy (Types #3 or #4 Hypocrisy). Clearly there are some people hurt by this hypocrisy (the taxpayers of Michigan who will have to pay for more UMich employees at the Undergraduate admissions department so they can implement sneakiness equal to the sneakiness at the Law School, people who will be denied entry into the law school). Clearly some people will be helped (the people who get good jobs implementing sneakiness who would otherwise not have such good jobs, people who will get into the law school). I once had a conversation with someone who had spouted the slogan "this decision is a victory for every student" when the SCourt first issued it. The conversation went something like this,

Me: Every student?
Other person: Every student and every citizen is a winner with this decision.
Me: What about prospective students who can't get it because of the decision?
Other person: No such student exists (first); then, after more discussion
They win by living in a more just society (later)
Me: What about students got in through affirmative action and who would have done better at a lower rated University but flunk out at Umich?
Other person: No such person exists (first); then, after more discussion
They win by being challenged to improve themselves

The distinction between moderate and minimal turns on whether the situation can be rectified easily. There is as of today, an effort to put something on the ballot in the State of Michigan that would ban preference by race. There are considerable barriers to getting such propositions on the ballot and the State of Michigan will doubtless use substantial resources to defeat this proposition if it does get to the ballot. Thus, I would say that this hypocrisy has some aspects of Type #1 hypocrisy (necessary) but more generally seems to be a Type #3 (minimally dangerous) or more likely Type #4 (moderately dangerous) hypocrisy.

The SCourt's decision in the cited case is at:
http://www.usscplus.com/current/cases/PDF/9930074.pdf