Did Obama Break A Campaign Promise and then "Disappear" the Promise

The fellow in the image is Lloyd Chapman. He blogs for the American Small Business League. He maintains that Senator Obama promised during his campaign,

"....Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."

He then states that President Obama has not done anything yet to implement this and has, in fact, made the situation worse. He also notes that some websites which featured Senator Obama's promise to small business have disappeared (but he had screen saves of them I gather).

As to hypocrisy, it is far too early to tell. Three weeks into an administration isn't time to implement pro small business practices (full disclosure: I think, based on my experience as a federal govt employee, a lot of the federal govt.'s small business practices are wasteful; I think it is almost indisputable that the regulation in this area drives up the cost of certain highway items, e.g., guardrail, line painting, etc.). Let's see what this fellow says this time next year.


The Wikipedia site on Mr. Chapman is here. He apparently sued the Bush administration a number of times so it doesn't seem he is a partisan Republican.

Mr. Chapman's blog was put out as a PR piece by the American Small Business League.

The Obama campaign website had a promise on the small business issue.

Prince Charles on an Ecotour

Prince Charles, his wife and 16 friends will be going on a 10 day ecotour to promote awareness of global warming.

They will use the A-319 jet pictured on the left (which could transport about 130 people if used commercially). Per various calculations, the carbon footprint will exceed 200 tons. Charles says this will be offset with carbon credits.

Once again, this is a test of belief. If Charles really, truly beliefs in carbon credits, then no hypocrisy.

The info for the article comes from a British newspaper.

I don't know how much per ton Charles paid. From this wikipedia article it seems it would be on the order of $20 to $50 per ton.

State University of Illinois and Their Plagiarism Policy

My brother Irwin alerted me to this interesting tidbit.

An State Illinois University (SIU) committee had recently completed an 18 months long inquiry into plagiarism at the SIU. A 17 page report was published (about 1 page for every month the committee deliberated). The report contained a definition of plagiarism that seems to have been copied, almost word for word from a definition published by Indiana University in 2005. This is per a report by a blogger who is taking an account from another source (with proper attribution).

On a fun note, various people on the SIU team that developed the policy were interviewed and no one was willing and able to say who did the plagiarism definition. One person on the team said it must just be coincidence but as the two definitions were read to her indicated that maybe it wasn't coincidence.

Assuming the body of the report says that plagiarizing is bad and not to be tolerated, this example of plagiarizing by the SIU committee (or the principle author of the study or the very shy author of the definition of plagiarizing), is a fairly obvious case of hypocrisy.

Is it serious?

I don't think so. First of all, very few people really care whether an SIU committee is committing hypocrisy (personally I presume people assume there is a certain amount of sleasiness in SIU). Second, whether SIU investigates and prevents further plagiarism is pretty much dependent on enforcement, not policy since everyone acknowledges that Universities shouldn't engage in plagiarism nor allow professors or students to do so.

However, the article is very good for chuckles. The image is a structure on the Carbondale, IL. campus called the "Paul and Virginia Fountain". Apparently the sculptor of this is unknown (like the author of the plagiarized definition).

UPDATE: At this same university, the Director of Career Services retired recently when it was revealed that his actual military service records did not match the awards and medals he had claimed the past 20 years.

Did Hypocrisy Sink the Nomination of Tom Daschle

There is a long post on Townhall by the son of Linda Chavez. Ms. Chavez was nominated by George W. Bush to be Labor Secretary in 2001. She had to withdraw her nomination because of criticism based on a tax issue.

The writer says that Daschle's vigorous opposition. Here is the writer's version:

"...Shortly after my mother Linda Chavez was nominated by President Bush to be Secretary of Labor in January of 2001, ABC News reported that she had given room and board to an undocumented woman from Guatemala. As Chavez stated at the time, she had provided the battered woman with emergency assistance due to the domestic abuse she was facing at the time, got her enrolled in English classes, and helped her find work with a neighbor. In her own defense, Chavez pointed to her long history of taking in those in need, and a long history of paying taxes on household help from legal citizens, as tax records confirmed.

But Chavez’s honest explanation was completely disregarded by Daschle. Less than a week after Bush announced the nomination, the then-Minority Leader declared he had “serious problems” with the illegal alien revelations and threatened to filibuster her nomination, a move that would have been the first in our nation’s history against a cabinet nominee...."

There are some problems that the writer glosses over. The undocumented woman did a lot of chores for the Chavez household while living there. These chores went beyond those of a 'guest'. So, there was some legitimate question of whether the woman was an 'employee'. Not withstanding the fact that the woman, herself, said that she did these chores by her own initiative and is a friend of the Chavez household.

Anyway, let's assume this is hypocrisy. The fact is that I don't think the 'hypocrisy' issue affected the Daschle nomination or the fact that he withdrew his nomination today. The issue was, I think, 1. 'you are supposed to pay taxes and the bigger a celebrity you are, the cleaner you should be'; and 2. Obama promised that he would bring people in who were not part of the system of lobbyists (Daschle was a consultant to lobbyists, not technically a lobbyist but it is a technical difference that doesn't ring very cleanly). In a sense, then, it was Obama's promises on ethics (a possible hypocrisy that I might get to analyze at some point) that sunk Daschle and not Daschle's hypocrisy (they are both in the image on the top).

Thermostat Hypocrisy
h/t Instapundit (who used this phrase in a post)

To the left is an image of a White House meeting that took place Jan 27 or 28. The President and two others have removed their suit jacket.

As reported by the NY Times (who is also responsible for the image),
"... President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat."

An Obama advisor said, " “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

Let's ignore the fact that Obama hasn't lived in Hawaii for many years (although he has vacationed there).

Here is an Obama statement from the campaign,

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

Here is an Obama statement about the weather and D.C. area school closings (Jan 28 2009),

""My children's school was canceled today," Obama said, speaking to reporters before a meeting with business leaders. "Because of what? Some ice? . . . We're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness (this contradicts the "Hawaii" defense by the way) to this town."

He clearly is doing that (raising the thermostat to 'orchid temperature' in the winter) which he says we "can't" (actually he should have said, "shouldn't" in that quote).

Hypocrisy but not very serious.

Boston Herald Says Barney Frank is a Hypocrite

Well the opinion piece by staff of the Boston Herald is short enough to quote in its entirety,

"Barney Frank’s hypocrisy

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Saturday, January 24, 2009 -

Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork - except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places.

One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston - a bank that had already been accused of “unsafe and unsound banking practices.” Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for “excessive” pay that included a Porsche.

Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank’s bailout application.

“I believe it would have been a very big mistake to put the only black bank (in Massachusetts) out of business,” Frank said. Besides, he insists, “It was a case of the federal government causing the problem.”

Causing the bad loans OneUnited made? Or would that go back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Frank so staunchly defended earlier on?

Frank has never failed to amaze us with his ability to defend the indefensible and to staunchly uphold the double standard. It’s his special talent."

---------------

It may be that the staff of the Boston Herald knows a lot of what Barney Frank (that's him in the image) has said in the past but I certainly don't. I don't think most of the readers of the paper do either. In any case I haven't a clue as to what Barney Frank said that makes his actions in greasing the skids to get a home town bank bailed out classified as hypocrisy. Personally, I think the staff should have entitled their piece, "Barney Frank's Buddies Get $". If those buddies were big time contributors to the Barney Frank campaign fund also, that would be interesting from a legal standpoint. However, as to hypocrisy--- I can't see it.

Comment: Is CIA Director Nominee a Hypocrite?

Thus reads the title of a posting at a site called "Intelligence News."

This has to do with the practice of rendition, in which the US essentially kidnaps someone and delivers him to some other country for interrogation.

There is no doubt that this practice existed during the Clinton Administration and that Leon Panetta (image on the left, the nominee for CIA Director) knew about it. There is also no doubt that, in the months following the 9-11 atrocity, the US did more of it than it had under the Clinton Administration.

The posting actually acknowledges the fact that Panetta might have changed his mind about the legality or morality of the practice or might have an idea that under some sets of circumstances, the practice of rendition is OK and under other circumstances it is not OK. In the middle of this analysis the post says the following,

"...Leo Panetta’s purported role in the practice of extraordinary rendition during Bill Clinton’s Presidency does not automatically render hypocritical his stated condemnation of torture."

I certainly agree with this. Its far too complicated to make a definitive statement about hypocrisy.

Accusing Itself of Hypothetical Hypocrisy

Reporting on a tax problem of the nominee for US Secretary of the Treasury, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said,


"... Obama's staff told senators about the tax problems [failure to pay taxes on a reimbursement for taxes that he hadn't paid] on Dec. 5. We should have been clued in, say, Dec. 6. It should not come up hours before a Senate confirmation hearing -- not when it's clear that transparency is supposed to be the standard for this new administration. We can only imagine what we would have said had Geithner been a Bush appointee..."

This says to me that the newspaper admits (or possibly brags) that it would criticize a Republican (or Bush Administration) action far more harshly than it would the same action by a Democrat (or future Obama Administration).

Of course, this is a hypothetical case since no one nominated by Bush committed a tax violation similar to the one committed.

"You Know" vs. "Uh"

Caroline Kennedy is seeking to be appointed to the Senate in NY (to replace Sen. Clinton when Clinton takes office as Sec of State). Caroline apparently says, "you know" a lot.

According to the Telegraph,

"Caroline Kennedy's campaign to claim Hillary Clinton's Senate seat has taken another downturn after an interview in which she said "you know" 142 times..."

The interesting thing here is that President elect Obama uses the expression 'uh' a lot. The Telegraph has never made fun of him for this.

I'm not sure what is going on here. Maybe to the British mind (or ear), "You know" sounds worse that "Uh". If so, its not hypocrisy; otherwise, it sure seems to be.

On the Letterman program in March 2008, they made fun of the Obama "Uh"s. However, no one ever said it was disqualifying.

Is This Art Hypocrisy?

There is an art display at the Harrow Arts Centre (Harrow is a borough of London). The Centre removed images of nudes in Oct 2008. The image on the left was mounted in November and a complaint was made in late December. As noted in the Harrow news,


"...Ms Davey accused the council of hypocrisy for allowing the painting of the Muslim woman but censoring the nudes. "

I can't tell from the article whether the artist meant for the woman to be a terrorist or a hero.

Notwithstanding that, nudity and violence are clearly separate subjects. However, if the standard for art at the Harrow Centre is "don't show anything that offends anyone" (I'm not sure that is the standard), and the image on the left offends someone, then you are guilty of hypocrisy if you don't take it down.

Emily Says that Dahlia Says... Hypocrisy

The webzine Slate has a feature called the xx Factor. It deals with women's issues.

Recently one of the writers, Emily Bazelon wrote to say,

" Dahlia has pointed out the contradictions and hypocrisies here: The Bush administration is evincing much concern for the morals of pro-life health care workers even as it dictates a script of contested and medically inaccurate information for abortion providers. Obama will surely revoke this rule, but he can't do it with a quick stroke of the pen. In the meantime, let's at least refrain from calling this "the conscience rule," as the administration urges..."

The Dahlia in the quote is another Slate writer, Dahlia Lithwick. Dahlia compares the regulation issued under the Bush administration by the HHS (which would have to be revoked by another regulation but, notwithstanding what Emily said, the regulation's enforcement could be ended with a stroke of Obama's pen on Jan 21, 2009) which protects hospital workers from being required to perform abortions with a South Dakota law which requires providers of abortion to read a script to potential customers. That is, the comparison isn't between the Bush Administration and the Bush Administration but between the Bush Administration and a State.

I don't think this is hypocrisy on Emily's part. Just very sloppy research, a desire to use the word hypocrisy and possibly a case of BDS.

The Employees Free Choice Act

The fellow whose image is on the left, introduced legislation in 2007 that would require the National Labor Relation Board to compel companies to recognize a union if more than 50% of that companies employees signed a union card within a certain time period (although there are numerous other provisions including a provision for secret ballot elections if more than 30% sign a union card so requesting it).

Back in 2001, on the stationery of George Miller, sixteen US representatives signed a letter to Mexico containing this sentence,

".. [W]e feel that the secret ballot election is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose...."

Hypocrisy?

Probably but not necessarily. It could be that US Representative Miller believes that the situation in the US in 2007-2008 (he will reintroduce this in 2008 he says) is qualitatively different than in Mexico in 2001. Or he might have changed his mind.

It is almost certainly not the latter. On one of his websites, US Representative Miller says that the 30% provision saves the secret ballot. This is disingenuous at best because the same Union goons who could require a worker to sign the union card could simultaneously dissuade the worker from signing the secret ballot card.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Hypocrite or artful linguist

The King of Saudi Arabia (on the right in the image; President Karzai of Afghanistan is on the left) addressed a UN Interfaith conference and spoke out, ostensibly, in favor of tolerance,

Here is what he said according to an english language Turkish website,

“We state with a unified voice that religions through which Almighty God sought to bring happiness to mankind should not be turned into instruments to cause misery,” the king said, opening a UN General Assembly meeting initiated by Riyadh. “Terrorism and criminality are the enemies of every religion and every civilization. They would not have emerged except for the absence of the principle of tolerance.”

As the end of this article implies (although only far too gently IMO), Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a model when it comes to tolerance. As a matter of public record:

no religion except Islam may have a house of worship in the country;
women may not drive;
if a woman is raped she is subject to being prosecuted for adultery;
Shiite muslim are persecuted;
Sunnis who don't hold with the Salafist persuasion (e.g., the Sufi) are persecuted;
idiosyncratic groups of muslims like the Averi, Adumahddi, Ismaili) are subject to death if caught in public stating their beliefs;
public criticism of the King is a criminal offense.

there is lots more along those lines

This would be an open and shut case of hypocrisy except that we don't know what the King means.

The first sentence, "We state...misery", may simply means that he regrets that some Muslims are against him (the phrase "religions through which...happiness" may refer only to the various types of Salafism).

Furthermore, he may mean the phrase "terrorism and criminality" to only refer to killings and violence against Salafists and the phrase "principle of tolerance" to refer to his desire of all Salafists to recognize him (the King of SArabia) and the arbiter of what is right and wrong.

McCain, Obama and Joe the Plumber




After a brief back and forth Q&A at an Oct 11, 2008 campaign event for Senator Obama, a man, know known as Joe the Plumber has become famous (yes he has an entry in wikipedia).

Senator McCain uses the Q&A to charge Senator Obama with being a redistributionist.

Senator Obama denies that he is a redistributionist.

The fact of the matter is that Senator Obama is one and so is McCain because both advocate retention of the current progressive income tax system (with modest modifications). This is somewhat of a terminology issue rather than an issue of hypocrisy so I will not charge either of them with hypocrisy.

The fact of the matter is that the U.S. has a progressive income tax system. A recent study by the OECD actually classifies the U.S. as the most progressive in the world (or at least among the ones they studied).

Like any study, this one has some flaws since:

1. it only measures income and social security tax against reported income
2. the data collection in the various countries varies in comprehensiveness and accuracy
3. it doesn't include sales tax and property tax and excise taxes (although the US has a relatively low sales tax compared to most countries VAT and so this might actually favor the US 'progressiveness' index somewhat - as far a property taxes, I don't have much of clue about what other countries do; the high excise taxes of some countries probably contribute to progressiveness).

I suppose it would be too inconveniently honest of Senator Obama to say "yes I will try to make the system slightly more progressive" or for Senator McCain to say "I propose to keep the system progressive but slightly less than it is now".

BTW, I recall one of the reasons I did not keep renewing the subscription I had with The New Republic (TNR), that I had inherited from my mother,) is that TNR kept having article after article advocating means testing of social security benefits on the grounds that the social security taxation of income is regressive (the other reasons were that since I read the WaPost, I pretty much already get exposed to the liberal viewpoint).

Of course it is true that social security taxation of income is regressive (income above, say $100k isn't taxed). However social security benefits are very progressive, in fact far more so than the taxation side is regressive.

This doesn't mean I necessarily oppose means testing of social security benefits or extending the income limit for social security taxation (the latter would be easier to administer so if we have to do one or the other, extension of the income limit seems preferable). I simply disliked the intellectual dishonesty of a magazine which frequently prides itself on its honesty.

Sarah Palin Redistributionist?

Governor Palin, like Senator McCain have recently criticized Senator Obama for being, in essence, a redistributionist, that is, someone who wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Whether the criticism is true is not the issue I'm going to deal with.

Instead the issue is whether Governor Palin is herself a redistributionist by virtue of Alaska's oil and gas severence fee and the Petroleum Trust. The latter group takes proceeds from the former and distributes some of it to Alaska citizens.

A blogger for the Atlantic, Marc Armbinder has a post on this subject in which he, implies (I think in a tongue in cheek way) that Palin is being a hypocrite on this point. He says, in part,

"Palin taxed oil company profits and cut $1200 checks for every Alaskans.

That's spreading the wealth. Redistributing some money.

The McCain campaign talks about Palin's executive experience.

So Obama might have socialistic inclinations... Palin's gotten it done."

-----------------------------------------

Well. There are some problems with the accusation of hypocrisy here. One problem is that the Alaska Petroleum Trust was set up in the 1980s and Palin is simply administering an existing program. The other, more important problem is that the Oil and natural gas in the portion of the Prudhoe basin where the product is produced is property of the State of Alaska. The State charges companies a fee for taking the product from the basin. This is quite a different matter than the case where the Government taxes income because the government doesn't own the income in the first place.

Cute analogy but no hypocrisy.

Luxury Jet at the World Wildlife Fund

At one of their websites, the WWF has Tips on What to do on Global Warming.

"Reduce your air travel.
Although air travel can be very convenient, the emissions from planes contribute significantly to climate change. When possible, use another form of transportation such as the train or bus."

At another website, they advertise a private jet excursion as a fundraiser,

This site says in part,

"Trip Overview One of the tips is:

Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by a luxury private jet. Touch down in some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see the top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans. Explore natural and cultural treasures in remote areas of South America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa.

To reach these remote corners, travel on a specially outfitted private jet that carries just 88 passengers in business-class comfort."

Probably they will buy 'carbon offsets' (all the sanctimony with none of the inconvenience). Without the belief in carbon offsets this would be obvious hypocrisy even to the WWF.

Does Hypocrisy Describe It?

An article in Commentary called, "

Hypocrisy Doesn’t Begin To Describe It"

accuses Senator Obama of fraud which is (in the author's opinion) worse than hypocrisy. The author, Jennifer Rubin, first quotes someone who (I think) accuses Obama of hypocrisy, then disagrees with it in part.

Here is a portion of the article (the quote that Rubin disagrees with),

"...Obama’s obfuscation regarding Ayers is, in a sense, the homage that vice pays to virtue - a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that the political culture of Chicago, and especially of Hyde Park, is more accommodating than perhaps it should be to a morally dubious figure like Ayers, and that having accommodated himself to those accommodations Obama now recognizes the need to behave as if he didn’t."

and here is the disagreement,

"more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he’s a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises - and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Francisco (original source spelled the city wrong) liberal donors."

Rubin comes to the conclusion that this is fraud, not hypocrisy.

"There is no end to it — everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It’s fraud."

All this goes whether Obama either,
- Pretends to believe what he doesn't believe.
- Pretends to be what he isn't.

Let's say Senator Obama has pretended to be what he isn't. This isn't too much of a stretch since, unless he has changed his mind about what he believes in, he is portrayed as a "I love America" kind of guy in some of his ads (where he talks about the values of Kansas where he lived for a few years) and also let his "God Damn America" pastor (noted in the article) think he believed otherwise.

That is, if he is the "I love America" guy he was a hypocrite in pretending to support his "God Damn America" pastor. If he believed in "God Damn America" he is a hypocrite now.

Ah. But which is it or is it something else. Suppose Senator Obama believes in neither "I love America" nor "God Damn America" suppose he just believes that he is destined to be President and whatever pretend belief advances the goals at the opportune time is the 'right' pretend belief. Which is to say, perhaps he believes that hypocrisy is a necessary act to advance a larger goal.

As to fraud, well, this blog deals with hypocrisy, not fraud.

----
UPDATE:

My cousin Ellen thinks that Senator Obama has a defense against hypocrisy based on nuance. For example, say Obama had a nuanced position on Ayers (let's say he disagreed with Ayers on the inherent criminality of America but thought Ayers had valuable ideas on education). This would be a decent defense before the egregious failure of Ayer's education ideas in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and even after that failure if Obama thought there were good ideas that came out of it (which he has never said but may believe).

However, on the Jeremiah Wright issue, I don't see a lot of room for nuance. At one point in the campaign, Obama said he thought his church really wasn't very controversial. Then after videos of Wright's sermons were posted on internet sites, he said that he loved Wright but sometimes disagreed with what he said but he would never leave the church. Then after a sermon at the church preached by a Catholic priest (who had been a indirect grantee from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and also from the Woods Foundation another charitable trust in which both Obama and Ayers served), Obama left his church. At no time in this process did Obama ever say, "I used to believe X but now believe not-X. Thus the nuance defense in this case is pretty iffy.

Columnist for Newsweek Proclaims Hypocrisy

Anna Quindlen has a syndicated column that is purchased by Newsweek. My cousin Ellen kindly sent me a link to a column in the Sept 15 issue in which Quindlen accuses somebody of hypocrisy regarding the selection of Governor Palin as VP candidate,

".... This would all have been entertaining if it [I think she means the criticism of anti Palin opinion as sexist but I'm not entirely sure] were not such rank hypocrisy. These are people who have inveighed against affirmative action, a version of which undoubtedly played a part in this selection. These are people who inveighed against personal attacks on their new nominee when the wingnuts of their own party elevated such attacks to a fine art by accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of fictitious misdeeds ranging from treason to murder. To try to suggest Sarah Palin might garner the Hillary Clinton vote, that one woman is just the same as another, that biology trumps ideology, is the ultimate evidence of true sexism, and I hope Senator Clinton will travel the country and say so."

Here's a major problem. Not only do I not know the exact criticism of anti Palin opinion. Not only do I not know the previous allegedly sexist comments; Quindlen doesn't even say the specific person who she considers sexist and hypocritical (if she did, maybe I could find these comments).

What I think Quindlen may be thinking is that there is something I'm going to call a 'composite conservative' who has made 'sexist' comments in the past and now this 'composite' conservative is criticizing all anti-Palin opinion as sexist. This is just a theory because Quindlen gives no examples of any specific 'sexist' comment by anyone (conservative or otherwise).

Since there are millions of conservatives, I'm sure at least some of them have made sexist comments in the past and I'm sure at least some of them have criticized anti-Palin opinion as sexist but I'm not entirely sure that any given conservative has done both because Quindlen certainly has the time and resources to have named someone and given the time/date/place of both the sexist and the criticism of anti-Palin remark if she could find it.

Thus the charge of hypocrisy is completely unsupported.

Near the end of the Quindlen column is the following,

"... John McCain has been no advocate for women; when asked during the primaries, on the subject of Senator Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" he responded, "Excellent question." (Note to the GOP: that IS sexist.)"

There is an apparently uncut video of the incident to which Quindlen refers at youtube. In the video Senator McCain is a bit troubled by the question turns away from the person who asked the question, thinks and then asks to 'give the translation' (he finds this 'give the translation' response self amusing) before saying it is an excellent question and in his answer says clearly that he respects Senator Clinton (who presumably was the subject of the question). Probably he should have gone on to reprimand the questioner, however, notwithstanding this, Quindlen's version of this is clearly slanted. I hope I would have done better when being asked to answer such a question but I'm not sure I would.

While browsing this subject I have become convinced that the attacks against Gov Sarah Palin are maintaining a high level of viciousness. As an example, Comedienne Sandra Bernhard evidently has a comedy skit about Palin full of obscenity (I don't understand the humor). The actual video of Bernhard is here (warning- very obscene). Subsequent to some complaints, Ms Bernhard justified her remarks based on a webposting and some email that Sarah Palin had billed rape victims for 'rape kits' provided to such victims. This webposting and email has now been thoroughly debunked.

A less obscene type attack on Sarah Palin by US Representative Rangel.

A paranoid attack on Sarah Palin by Naomi Wolf (who famously advised Al Gore to wear earth tones) is on the HPost (Ms Wolf says Palin will replace McCain soon after the election and institute a fascist state; Ms. Wolf also says her mail is being stolen, etc.).

U.S. Representative (from FL) Alcee Hastings (who is also one of only 6 Federal Judges ever to be impeached) said at an event that Palin's moose hunting would make her a danger to Jews (the audience was largely Jewish).

U.S. Representative Wexler charged Palin with being a pro-Pat Buchanan supportor and therefore anti Israel. However, Palin is apparently a supporter of Israel and had an flag of Israel in her office before she was selected as VP nominee.

Professor Doniger Accuses Palin of a Triple Hypocrisy

Professor Doniger has an endowed chair at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

She has a column or op ed in Newsweek.

Here is the accusation:

"... the hypocrisy of her outing her pregnant daughter in front of millions of people, hard on the heels of her concealing her own pregnancy (her faith in abstinence applying, apparently, only to non-Palins), is nicely balanced by her hypocrisy in gushing with loving support of her teenage daughter after using a line-item veto to cut funding for a transitional home for teenage mothers in Alaska. Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."

There may be something about professors. I can't figure out what the hypocrisies actually are (did Palin say "don't let anyone know if your daughter is pregnant). I am unable to determine anything out of Doniger's column other than the fact that she obviously doesn't care for Gov Palin.

As for the "greatest hypocrisy", this seems pretty close to insanity (except if you believe in the most extreme side of postmodernism, i.e., that all 'truth' is just a 'construct').

One interesting item is the line item comment. The Alaska legislature had allocated $5M for a capital improvement to charitable facility that, among other things, provided the transitional home. Palin used her veto power to cut it to $3.9M. The organization itself indicates that this will have no impact on the operation side of the facilty.

Palin a Hypocrite?

A few posts earlier (Aug 8 date), a Slate writer accused John McCain of being a hypocrite for one of his advertisements.

Today, a different Slater writer accuses Sarah Palin of being a hypocrite for taking federal funds while decrying pork projects (the image is from the Slate article).

The Slate writer, Tim Noah, brings this as evidence,

"The woman who made this complaint about big government taking your money is the governor of Alaska. Please take a moment to look at this U.S. Census chart showing federal-government expenditures, per capita, in the 50 states. You will observe that Alaska receives about $14,000 per citizen from the federal government. That's more than any other state, and a good $4,000 more than every other state except Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Dakota. The chart is from the Census Bureau's Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Fiscal Year 2005. I skipped over the 2006 report, the most recent one available, because Hurricane Katrina put Louisiana and Mississippi ahead of Alaska that year."

Mr. Noah doesn't seem to understand that Governor Palin was not elected Governor until November 2006 and didn't take office until 2007. It will not be until many years in the future that decent information will be available to analyze Palin's influence on 'pork projects', and even then, this analysis will have to be based on information beyond the Census numbers on federal expenditures because, for one thing, expenditures in, say the year, 2008, may well be based on authorizations many years earlier.

My cousin asked me if Palin should be considered a hypocrite because, while running for Governor in 2006, she supported the 'bridge to nowhere' (actually a bridge to connect Ketchikan with an island to Gravina Island to its west which has the municipal airport) . I consider this an example of someone changing their mind.

If she said, "Everyone should be against the bridge to nowhere" at the same time she was for it, that would be hypocrisy.