Jim Messina - Hypocrite by Using the Wrong Cliche

Yeseterday, the White House signaled to big donors that they were launching an effort to get substantial sums of money to SuperPacs for use in the 2012 Presidential Election Campaign (the image of President Obama was at this campaign event). White House officials and senior advisors and cabinet secretaries will be speaking at fundraising affairs for these superPacs. President Obama famously said in 2010 that corporate funding of elections was devestating to the public interest.

However, I'm not commenting on this. I'm commenting on the comment by Jim Messina (at the 2012 event - that is him in the right image) that,

“With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules. Democrats can’t be unilaterally disarmed.”

I don't understand the 'unilaterally disarmed' comment although it was presumably supposed to be a metaphor. However, there are literally two (actually more than two) sets of rules. The official Obama for President will play by one set of rules and the Priorities USA Pac will play by another set of rules. So technically Messina is a hypocrit. However, this is simply because he used the wrong cliche. If he had said,

"With so much at stake, we will campaign as hard as it takes for as long as it takes",

he would have gotten the same message across without the hypocrisy.

I don't very many people are very disturbed by Messina's hypocrisy by the way. He is just a flunky.

NYTimes 2012 article on the Obama Campaign containing Jim Messina's comments is here.

Huffpo 2010 article containing Obama's "...devestating to the public interest' comment is here.

NYTimes 2008 article on the Obama Campaign rejecting public financing restrictions is here.

The NY Times changes their filibuster rhetoric again

The NYTimes Realizes Their Policy Change

Back in 1995, when a Democrat was President and the Senate was majority Republican by 53-47, the NY Times had an editorial entitled, "Time to Retire the Filibuster".

In 2005, when a Republican was President and the Senate was majority Republican by 55-44 (with one independent), the NY Times had an editorial supporting the Filibuster. Within the editorial (which had the title, "Walking in the Opposition's Shoes") was the following language (in which they admit to changing their position),

"...A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the "nuclear option" in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton's early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it's obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide."

In 2012, again with a Democratic President and a Senate that is 51 Democratic (with 2 independents who frequently join with the Democratic Party) the NYTimes again admits to changing their position (they are now against the filibuster) in an editorial titled "Filibustering Must End". Here is their admission of a change in policy,

"...This is a major change of position for us, and we came to it reluctantly. The filibuster has sometimes been the only way to deny life terms on the federal bench to extremist or unqualified judges. But the paralysis has become so dire that we see no other solution..."

The NYTimes here is not acknowledging the obvious, namely, that they seem to oppose filibusters when filibusters will hurt Presidents who are Democrats but support filibusters when filibusters will hurt Presidents who are Republicans. Given that the policy re: filibustering is editorial and editorials are opinions, there is no reason I can see why they don't simply say this.

I think this is actual hypocrisy, although they admit that they are changing their policy. This is because I think they are being disingenuous about their actual reasons, that is I think the editors can't possibly believe the actual logic of their editorial position (and I think this is obvious to most of there readers who also mostly agree with the editorial position and also agree that it would be best to be disingenuous while writing it up).
1995 NYTimes editorial here.
2005 NYTimes editorial here.
2012 NYTimes editorial here.

Jesse Jackson adds to the Civility Hypocrisy Issue

Back on July 6, 2008, Rev. Jesse Jackson, thinking the microphone (and camera - the image is from that event) was off, famously said about then Senator Obama "I want to cut his nuts off." Jackson gestured during this in a way to demonstrate such an action. The footage and audio was captured and shown by Fox News Network beginning July 8, 2008.

On January 28, 2012, Jackson criticized Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for pointing her finger at now President Obama during an argument (or heated discussion) the previous week (the argument/discussion was filmed and shown beginning January 27.

So gesturing about cutting off someones genitals is OK but finger pointing isn't. Eh.

Actually, it is difficult to get around labelling Jackson a hypocrite here. However there are two mitigating facts.

1. Jackson did apologize for the 'cutting off genital' comment.
2. Jackson's comment was when Obama was a Senator. Brewer's is when Obama is President.

On the other hand, no one else has criticized Brewer for this (that I can find) and Brewer hasn't seen fit to apologize (she probably doesn't realize Jackson has called for it).

So, given that the apology was only after it was shown on TV and that the difference between a Senator and a President, while significant, isn't that significant, I'm going to have to call Jesse Jackson a hypocrite here.

Jackson 2008 remarks and apology here.
January 2012 remarks by Jackson here.

Henry Waxman: It's terrorism when they do it but not when I do it.

Representative Henry Waxman (the unflattering image of him is on the left) has been in the House of Representatives for a long time (since 1975) and represents west Hollywood and Beverly Hills (and some of Santa Monica).

Yesterday, he accused Republicans of Terrorism for attaching a 'must build the Keystone Pipeline' rider to payroll tax extension legislation (this bill has not passed the full house of representatives as I type this). The Republicans can do this as they hold a majority on the Energy and Commerce Committee (the ECC) and of the full House of Representatives.

Back in 2009, Waxman's party (Democratic) was in the majority by a bigger majority than the Republicans have now. At that time he threatened the more conservative members of his own party that he would have health care legislation (am altered version of that bill eventually became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(aka Obamacare) bypass the ECC if they didn't go along with what he and the Speaker of the House (at the time Representative Nancy Pelosi) wanted.

Is this hypocrisy?

Well, he was referring to parliamentary tricks in both cases. However, there is enough difference between the types of tricks that someone could argue that one trick is OK but the other is not.

Here is the MSNBC article on Waxman accusing Republicans of terrorism.
Here is the Hotair article on Waxman threatening Democrats in 2009.
Here is a post comparing the image of Waxman with an image of a bat.

Anti Santorum website Accuses Santorum of Hypocrisy

Apparently there is a website specifically dedicated to criticizing former Senator Rick Santorum. One of their criticisms is that, while a Senator (he lost his seat in the 2006 election), Santorum supported a cap on pain and suffering in torts of $250,000. Some years later, Santorum's wife is the plaintiff in a lawsuit in which she is requesting $500,000 in pain and suffering.

Leave aside the fact that the vote was years before the lawsuit.
Leave aside the fact that Santorum and his wife are different people who do not necessarily agree.

It still isn't hypocrisy anymore than Warren Buffet's failure to voluntarily pay the tax rate he recommends (about twice the current rate) for his income (related issue discussed concerning Mr. Buffet in my Aug 29,011 post at this site).

Santorum says the law should be X. However, as long as the law is not X, he acts in conformance with the current law. Same for Buffet. Same for me for that matter.

The site of the 'Santorum hypocrisy' charge is here.

Marianne Implies Newt was a Hypocrite

The 2nd Mrs Gingrich gave an interview in which she said that upon her husband's confession that he had been cheating on her for 6 years with a woman (who is now the 3rd Mrs Gingrich), her husband (then former Speaker of the House of Representatives) indicated he wanted a divorce or an open marriage. This is an "Eeeewwww" moment but has nothing to do with hypocrisy. However, Marianne says in the interview,

"... The day after, Marianne noted, Gingrich gave a speech on “The Demise of American Culture.”

“How could he ask me for a divorce on Monday and within 48 hours give a speech on family values and talk about how people treat people?” she told the Post."

This implies hypocrisy. However, to fully investigate this, I would have to actually listen (maybe more than once) to the 2 hour+ speech and Q&A of "The Demise of American Culture".

I won't do it.

It is likely however, that during this entire time, Gingrich does not praise any great Americans for their marriage fidelity and if this was the case, the hypocrisy charge couldn't stick. The reason I think this likely is because we suspect some great Americans of the past were not faithful marriage partners (for example Benjamin Franklin acknowledged having an illegitimate son early in his life). Furthermore, it would be essentially impossible to prove marriage fidelity where every possible witness was long since dead.

Irwin suggested I might take this issue on.

Article on Marianne's interview about Newt (also where the image was taken) here.

Kerry Kennedy; Is she a hypocrite?

Kerry Kennedy is the daughter of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. She is also the ex wife (they divorced in 2005) of current Governor of NY, Andrew M. Cuomo (per image).

A post on the Powerline blog accuses her of hypocrisy. The Powerline post references an article in today's NYPost.

The NY Post provides evidence that Kennedy is advocating for a large ($18B) judgment in favor of Ecuador and against Chevron (full disclosure: our family owns some Chevron stock).

Kennedy has apparently appeared on a number of TV shows without disclosing that she is being paid to be an advocate and furthermore stands to make money (some $40M) if the judgment she advocates is awarded and paid (the merits of the case are beyond the scope of this post but interestingly, Chevron has never been active in drilling for oil or gas in Ecuador and is only being sued because they bought Texaco who, 7 year previously, was; furthermore, Chevron paid many millions to carry out a clean up approved by the Ecuadorian govt at the time).

But back to hypocrisy. Nowhere in the NY Post article does Kennedy say that, for example, "advocates of a cause should disclose their financial interests" or anything similar.

Thus, even though Kennedy may be violating some general ethical rules, I don't see the hypocrisy.




Post on Powerline is here.
Article in NY Post is here.

The Recess Appointment

Back when the President was George W. Bush, many Democrats did not like recess appointments. Here is what the NY Times said back in 2006,

"...It is disturbing that President Bush has exhibited a grandiose vision of executive power that leaves little room for public debate, the concerns of the minority party or the supervisory powers of the courts. But it is just plain baffling to watch him take the same regal attitude toward a Congress in which his party holds solid majorities in both houses.

Seizing the opportunity presented by the Congressional holiday break, Mr. Bush announced 17 recess appointments ...".

Here is what the NY Times said in 2012,

"... Last year, Senate Republicans refused to consider any nominee to run the bureau unless the White House first agreed to drastically curtail the bureau’s powers... After Mr. Obama nominated Mr. Cordray, the Republicans blocked a confirmation vote.

Congressional Republicans are calling the appointment “unprecedented” and “illegitimate” — that is rich given that they are determined to use any and all tactics to thwart the bureau and the Dodd-Frank reform law that created it.

Mr. Obama also appointed three new...

Announcing the appointments, Mr. Obama also asserted a welcome new credo: “When Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.”

Hear. Hear."

Others (many Senators and Obama himself when he was a US Senator) opposed one or more of Bush's recess appointees but typically in terse language (unlike the NY Times).

So is the NYTimes being hypocritical? Not quite. Here is an additional sentence they used by in 2006,

"... Mr. Bush's record in this area owes less to unreasonable Democrats than to the low caliber of some of his choices..."

So the NYTimes has a defense (although maybe it should be called a "defense") against the charge of hypocrisy, namely that recess appointments are bad when the NYTimes thinks the appointee is bad but OK when the NYTimes thinks the appointee is good.

Of course, the above discussion leaves out the problem that in the 2012 situation the Senate was not technically in recess by recent definitions. The NYTimes (two days after the quote earlier noted) has a news story on this in which they pretty much admit that Obama seriously broke precedence and presumably violated the constitution. They excuse this by saying that the situation, " compelled Mr. Obama to escalate matters further on Wednesday, making recess appointments even though the Senate was technically not in recess." This issue is interesting but is not a hypocrisy issue (unless you count that 'uphold the constitution' oath thing).

NYTimes statement in 2006 is here.
NYTimes statement in 2012 (Jan 5) is here.
SeattleTimes report of an Obama quote mildly criticizing a recess appointment in 2006 is here.
NY Times news piece in 2012 (Jan 7) is here.

Is Newt a Hypocrite on Health Care?

Back in 2006, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a business and one aspect of that business was the creation and distribution of a newsletter.

According to reports, these two sentences was he said regarding the Health Care Act passed in Massachusetts under then Governor Romney.

"The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," said an April 2006 newsletter published by Gingrich's former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation."

and

"We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100 percent insurance coverage for all Americans."

More recently (in 2011), Newt said this about Health Care

"Your [that is Romney's 2006] plan [presumably the same plan he said nice things about in 2006] essentially is one more big-government, bureaucratic, high-cost system,"

Is that hypocrisy?

One of the problems in this analysis is that the RomneyCare plan changed between the time it was sent to the Massachusetts legislature and the time it was signed and even after that. Romney sent legislation to the Massachusetts House and Senate in 2005 and there was considerable debate as changes were made to the bill. Eventually the State legislature sent Romney a bill. Romney vetoed 8 sections of the bill but the legislature eventually overrode all 8 vetoed sections. Thus, Gingrich could possibly be praising early versions of the bill and criticizing later sections.

In addition, the 2006 comments by Newt come with caveats, e.g., "...has tremendous potential for..." and "...our goal should be...". Thus the 2006 'endorsement' really isn't an endorsement at all.

In addition, Newt might simply have changed his mind (although if so, this should have been made explicit) or simply have made a mistake. On the latter point, Newt has admitted (in Dec 2011) that an appearance he made with then Speaker of the House Pelosi (in 2008) regarding the concept of 'cap and trade' for greenhouse gases was a dumb thing (the admission that something you've done was dumb is charming and is something I like in Gingrich possibly because I can't think of many other things I like about him).

No hypocrisy.

FoxNews article containing Newt's comments (both in 2006 and in 2011) is here.
More on the Romneycare bill is here.
More on the Gingrich policy on 'cap and trade' between 2008 and 2011 is here.

Paul: Gingrich - Serial Hypocrite

US Rep Ron Paul's campaign has released a video entitled, "Newt Gingrich, Serial Hypocrisy" (the image includes Mitt Romney between Newt and Gingrich because I couldn't find an image of just the two of them shaking hands).
The video (which is in black and white for some reason) brings up the fact that former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has taken money from Freddie Mac and an organization supporting the Affordable Healthcare Act of 2009 (aka Obamacare) while denouncing the problems presumed to be caused by Freddie Mac and those presumed to be caused in the future by Obamacare. Both of these sets of fact show Gingrich as being sleazy do not show hypocrisy. The video also shows Gingrich as supporting mandatory health care insurance and as supporting climate change action in a video with then (2009) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Assuming that Gingrich is now against both of these, a case could be made for hypocrisy but the video does not show Gingrich making the 'contrary' statement. To complicate the situation, Gingrich has now stated that the video with Pelosi was a dumb mistake. This does show (to conservatives) Gingrich as an unreliable conservative but that's not the same thing as hypocrisy.

The video is available here.
The Gingrich 'Pelosi statement a mistake' is here.
Irwin has suggested I might analyze this.

Is Paul Krugman a Yuan/Dollar Hypocrite?

Back in 2003, Krugman wrote an opinion piece criticizing then President Bush for, among other things, asserting that the Yuan was overvalued.

Recently, Krugman wrote an opinion piece praising Congress for asserting the Yuan was overvalued.

Does this make Paul Krugman a hypocrite?

In a word, "no".

This is because many things have changed since 2003. One important thing is the relative value of the Yuan which has increased in value relative to the dollar (most of the increase coming from June 2006 to Jan 2009). In addition, the US economy is different (back in 2003, it was relatively strong).

One problem that Krugman has here however is that, in 2011, he does not cite his own earlier work and briefly describe why the situation is different (some suggest that he is embarrassed that the economy is so much worse under Obama than under Bush but actually, I think Krugman is simply too lazy or too focused on his own thoughts this instant to look back - anyway, that is not relevant to the hypocrisy argument).


Krugman's 2003 piece is here.
Krugman's 2011 piece is here.
The yuan/dollar chart is from here.

Deval Patrick and Car Free Week

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (image) proclaimed this week "Car Free Week in Massachusetts".

Later he was photographed getting a ride in his state owned car (other image).

Several people accused him of hypocrisy partly because there are several transit stations very near the governors' mansion.

Whether this is hypocrisy or not seems to me to depend on, among other things, the exact wording of the "Car Free Week" proclamation or order or law or whatever. I can't find the wording but it seems as if it might have been a non official proclamation involving many officials and not just the Governor and, in any event was meant to 'encourage' using other means than cars. If the proclamation was simply to 'encourage', it also matters what event Governor Patrick was going to. I don't have this information either.

article in Boston CBS website is here.
article in Boston Herald about car free week is here.

Columnist Leonard Pitts Carves Out a Loophole

The fellow on the left is Leonard Pitts Jr. He is a columnist for the Miami Herald and has won a Pulitzer for commentary. The image is from his own website.

A major problem for commentators who have made pro civility statements is that some of the things they like are uncivil.

Mr. Pitts is such a person. He is pro civility. However, he likes what Representative Maxim Waters said recently about the Tea Party, i.e., “. . . And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to Hell.”

Pitts admits this is uncivil but he carves out a loophole. His words are,

"... it is also correct: telling people to go to hell is about as uncivil as it gets. I could never, in ordinary times, applaud such conduct. But no one will ever mistake these for ordinary times."

I think he also believes that it is OK for some people to be uncivil but not others and that vigorously defending your beliefs is uncivil if he disagrees with those beliefs but I'm unsure of his reasoning or how far he takes this.

In any event, this is a clever polemic device. Whenever you want to be uncivil, simply define the times are requiring it.



Website of Mr. Pitts is here.

The column with Mr. Pitts thoughts on civility is here.

Is Warren Buffett a Hypocrite?

A NY Post opinion piece essentially makes this accusation.

Here are the facts behind the accusation.

1. Mr. Buffett had an opinion piece in the NY Times advocating greater taxation rates on the income of rich.

2. Mr. Buffett had some sloppy language in the article, for example, failing to make a distinction between 'income' and 'income from wages' and failing to precisely and and consistently use the term rich.

3. The company that Mr Buffett heads, Berkshire Hathaway, is in a tax dispute with the IRS with the company (not a surprise) claiming a lower tax liability and the IRS claiming a higher one.

I don't see the hypocrisy. The sloppiness in the opinion piece is just sloppiness and a lot of opinion pieces have about the same level of imprecision, etc. The fact is that Buffett pays the taxes for which he is personally liable and Berkshire Hathaway will pay any taxes for which a court finds them liable (and there are legitimate reasons why a company and the IRS may interpret statutory language differently). Advocating higher marginal rates (or lower rates for that matter) is just advocacy, plain and simple.

NY Post opinion piece here.
Buffett's opinion piece in the NY Times here.

NYTimes Columnist Apologizes and Admits Hypocrisy

A number of columnists or elected officials have called the Tea Party 'terrorists' or similar names. One of them was Joe Nocera.

He was accused of being a hypocrite for previously calling for civility. He apparently thought about it and decided the criticism of him was correct and he apologized for it.

Interestingly, Froma Harrop says that she is not a hypocrite because she defines 'civility' as simply letting people have their say when they are speaking (so apparently she could call people names subsequently to their speaking and not be incivil)

Column where Mr Nocera apologizes for hypocrisy is here.

Ms Harrop's post where she defines civility in a post called "am I uncivil" is here.
Blogger Ed Morrisey points out that Ms. Harrop who defines civility as 'letting people have their say', ended up deleting all the comments to her blog that complain about this definition, which would make her a 'comment deletion hypocrite'.

Is Froma Harrop a Civility Hypocrite?

This is a case similar to one involving a former US representative. It is different in that case, the 'uncivil speech' preceded the criticism of 'uncivil speech'. In this case, the criticism of 'uncivil speech' was followed by 'uncivil speech'.

But first, something about Froma Harrop. She is a journalist who did reportage journalism for some years but has since become an opinion journalist and editorial writer. As a vigorous proponent of single provider health care and of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, she is considered a left leaner or solid left opinion journalist.

In April 2011, Ms Harrop was named president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers. The new mission of that organization was the Civility Project (NCEW) which is to improve the quality of political discourse (implicitly to make discourse more civil).

Here is part of what Ms Harrop said in a recent opinion piece,

"... The tea party Republicans have engaged in economic terrorism against the United States -- threatening to blow up the economy if they don't get what they want. And like the al-Qaida bombers, what they want is delusional: the dream of restoring some fantasy caliphate in which no one pays taxes, while the country is magically protected from foreign attack and the elderly get government-paid hip replacements..."

whether Ms Harrop is a hypocrite depends on whether she believes the Republican position (that federal spending should be reduced) is within what have been called the Overton window which is the range of legitimate opinion on a particular issue. It seems to me that Ms Harrop may believe that no rational person could believe that federal spending should be curtailed during a weak recovery (notwithstanding that a large number of Americans feel this way and notwithstanding the fact that Ms Harrop seems to feel that tax increases during a weak recovery are rational and reasonable). If she does feel this way, she may feel that 'civility' is only due rational people. Of course, if she feels this way, it would be nice to have that statement on the NCEW website (it isn't, nor is any statement of what 'civility' is).

Bottom line. She may or may not be a hypocrite depending on some definitions and what is going on in her head.


April 2011 article in Rhode Island newspaper discussing Harrop's appointment is here.

Aug 2 2011 opinion piece by Harrop is here.

The Civility Project page of the NCEW is here.

A Civility Project page with the beginning of a definition of civility is here.

The Wikipedia article on the Overton Window is here.

Does GE Bring Hypocrisy to You?

Back in January 2011, President Obama established a Presidential Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The President appointed the CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt to chair the council.

Within a few days there were complaints about whether GE is even a 'good citizen' and pays a fair amount of taxes. Also, there was concern as to whether Mr. Immelt has a conflict of interest in serving on this council.

However, for the sake of an evaluation of hypocrisy, I'm going to focus on the issue of jobs.

On July 11, 2011 at a 'jobs summit' conference, one of the speakers (a headline speaker) was Mr. Immelt. The CNN report of this is entitled,

"Immelt: Businesses must do more on jobs."

A few days later, GE announced it was moving its X-ray business to China.

Is this a case of hypocrisy.

I think not. At least not on the basis of this one story.

GE is an enormous company with dozens (or maybe hundreds) of subsidiary operations. It might be hiring in some parts of the company while cutting jobs in other operations (GE actually stated that moving the X-ray biz to China would not result in job cutbacks). Furthermore, GE might be increasing employment in some months (or years) and decreasing them in others. In addition, it is hard to 'count' jobs by a single employer. For example, what if GE cut 50 jobs and then hired on a contractor who in turn hired those same 50 people to do their old job. That would result in a decrease in GE jobs but not in all jobs.


The Whitehouse.gov announcement of the appointment of Immelt is here.

With respect to the conflict of interest issue, see here.

With respect to the taxation issue see here and here and here.

July 11 CNN report is here.

July 26 report of GE moving X-ray business to China is here.

Obama and Corporate Jets

In a June 30, 2011 press conference (actually much of the conference is the President's opening remarks but that is typical for press conferences for all Presidents), President Obama mentioned the tax break for corporate jets a half dozen times. He noted that it is a tax expenditure and challenged the Republicans to repeal it.

The tax expenditure (which allows depreciation in 5 years instead of 7 years) was in the stimulus bill the President signed.

In addition, the day before this press conference, Obama visited an Alcoa Plant in Iowa where aircraft components are made. Most of the work there is done for large jets but some is also done for small jets (e.g., Gulfstream).

Does this make Obama a hypocrite?

Probably not in my opinion.

The stimulus bill was passed with very little apparent Administration input (no administration bill was ever developed). It is even possible that the President was never briefed on the corporate jet aspect of the bill or that such a briefing was very short. As a side note, almost every important bill in the 111th Congress (e.g., the stimulus, the health care act, the financial reform act) happened without much apparent Administration input.


Transcript of the June 30 press conference is here.
Article from 2009 spotting the corporate tax break in the stimulus bill is here.
Alcoa's PR on the Obama visit is here.
A post from Powerline calling Obama a hypocrite on this is here.

Was Korah a Hypocrite?

In chapters 16-17 of Numbers, there are a series of confrontations between Moses and several factions of the Israelites.

In one of these, Moses is speaking to Korah who is the leader of one faction (or maybe the leader of two or even three factions depending on your interpretation). Here is what Moses says (I've used Young's literal translation which emphasizes the plural vs singular and past vs present distinction),

¹And Korah, son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, taketh both Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, sons of Reuben,

²and they rise up before Moses, with men of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty, princes of the company, called of the convention, men of name,

³and they are assembled against Moses and against Aaron, and say unto them, `Enough of you! for all the company -- all of them [are] holy, and in their midst [is] J... ; and wherefore do ye lift yourselves up above the assembly of J...?'

⁴And Moses heareth, and falleth on his face,

⁵and he speaketh unto Korah, and unto all his company, saying, `Morning! -- and J... is knowing those who are his, and him who is holy, and hath brought near unto Him; even him whom He doth fix on He bringeth near unto Him.

⁶This do: take to yourselves censers, Korah, and all his company,

⁷and put in them fire, and put on them perfume, before J... to-morrow, and it hath been, the man whom J... chooseth, he [is] the holy one; -- enough of you, sons of Levi.'

⁸And Moses saith unto Korah, `Hear ye, I pray you, sons of Levi;

⁹is it little to you that the God of Israel hath separated you from the company of Israel to bring you near unto Himself, to do the service of the tabernacle of J..., and to stand before the company to serve them? --

¹⁰yea, He doth bring thee near, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee -- and ye have sought also the priesthood!

One way of thinking about this is that in verse 9, Moses is referring to the fact that the Levites had been given the honor of carrying the disassembled tabernacles when the Israelites would journey (and Korah's clan was assigned to carry the holiest of the items, e.g., the ark). If Korah was interested in 'spiritual equality' (as one might think from verse 3), shouldn't he have said then (when the Levites were appointed for the task), that the other tribes should get their chance at this. Or, at the time when the Levites were given the honor of attending to the details of the offerings, shouldn't Korah have spoken up at that time. In verse 10, Moses is saying that therefore, Korah's pretense of seeking spiritual equality is simply a gambit to get the priesthood for himself.

Of course there are many other ways to look at this. Given this, I won't do an analysis.

the image is from a blog (the blogger is a 59 year old nurse;she posts a lot of Christian content and the post that used this image was about her feeling 'stiff necked' that morning)

The portion of Bamidbar (a.k.a., Numbers), in Hebrew and the JPS translation (different from the one above) is here.

I altered Young's translation slightly to use the phrase, "J..." when Young uses a pronunciation.

Hypocrisy and Culpability

Well anyway, that's the title of an opinion piece in The New Republic (a.k.a., TNR, a magazine that is leftist on economic matters and internationalist on foreign matters).

As is usual the opinion piece doesn't specify the hypocrisy (or the culpability), but the gist is that since President Obama aided the rebels in Libya who were in danger of massacre, Obama should do the same for the people of the Nuba mountains who are in more danger. TNR is on strong factual grounds with respect to the relative genocidal nature of Libya's Qaddafi vs Sudan's Omar Al Bashir. The latter has already been involved in genocide in Dafar and south Sudan while the former is merely a run of the mill thug whose has opponents murdered in small groups.

Notwithstanding this, I don't think Obama is guilty of hypocrisy here. In his March 2011 statement on Libya, Obama indicated that the situation was 'special',

"....It's true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what's right. In this particular country — Libya — at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves. We also had the ability to stop Gadhafi's forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground...."

As the quote implies, Obama sought to make a distinction between the Libyan situation and other situations that would come up. In addition, in the Libyan case, the anti Gadhafi forces had control of a huge contiguous territory and that made the logistics of aiding them much easier (of course, Obama seems to have vastly underestimated the problem in Libya but that is just a mistake, not hypocrisy). Some people have pointed out a cynical difference between the Libyan situation and others. In Libya, a putative massacre would result in lots of gory images and victims who speak English saying 'why didn't you help us?' whereas that is less likely in the Nuba mountains where telecommunications are almost non existent.


The TNR opinion piece is here. A report on the potential for genocide of people in the area of the Nuba mountains is here. Obama's "Responsibility to Act" speech on Libya is here.