Transportation Hypocrisy or incoherence

A letter to the Montgomery County Gazette accuses elected officials of hypocrisy regarding transportation.

First, the letter writer notes that he likes light rail more than bus rapid transit. He then says that Montgomery county is proceeding toward a rapid bus transit decision as opposed to light rail. He then notes that Baltimore has a light rail line (all these statements are presumed to be true). Then he makes the accusation:

"Why should Montgomery County be handed only the choice of a dedicated bus line when the politicians from Baltimore, sitting in the positions of authority at the State House in Annapolis, commit hypocrisy given the light rail in their area? What hypocrisy.

So per the letter writer, because there is light rail in Baltimore, then Montgomery County must have light rail also.  This would be hypocrisy only if light rail and bus rapid transit were identical in their cost, impact, service characteristics, etc. but they are not. Think of the argument this way, if handicapped people get handicapped parking, why shouldn't non handicapped people get handicapped parking?

I think the argument is incompetent. No hypocrisy.

Letter in full available here.

Tim Noah's Definition of Hypocrisy

Tim Noah is a senior editor at The New Republic.

In an opinion piece for that publication he writes about Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard U. who is running for Senate in Massachusetts.

Warren claimed American Indian ancestry on her professor ID at Harvard (and earlier did so at another University). She denied remembering that she had made this claim but later admitted it. It also turns out that nobody has been able to identify any American Indian ancestry for Warren.

Noah, who perhaps for ideological reasons, seems to like Warren comes up with several points defending her. The one that interested me is this,

"...Warren may have used her Native American ancestry to get ahead in the cutthroat world of legal academia. We don’t know that she did, and she says she didn’t. But let’s assume she’s lying and that she did make an effort to inform potential employers that she was part Native American. That would be hypocritical if Warren were known to oppose affirmative action. But Warren, a liberal Democrat, almost certainly supports affirmative action.."

Apparently, in Noah's definition, if you support affirmative action, it is NOT hypocritical to lie about your ancestry it but if you oppose affirmative action, it would be hypocritical to lie your ancestry..

I can't follow the logic there. Lying about ancestry to achieve an appointment as a professor is a distinct action that would seem to undermine the whole point of affirmative action as well as being inherently immoral and.or unethical. But maybe Noah doesn't see it that way. .


Noah's opinion piece is here.

National Security Hypocrisy

The NY Times essentially states that the President of the US is a hypocrite in a long deeply sourced article. Here are some excerpts from the article (the image is from the article and shows President Obama with two advisers):

"...Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war...Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president’s own deep reserve.. . a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.... the invention of a new category of aerial attack following complaints of careless targeting; and presidential acquiescence in a formula for counting civilian deaths that some officials think is skewed to produce low numbers....A phalanx of retired generals and admirals stood behind Mr. Obama on the second day of his presidency, providing martial cover as he signed several executive orders to make good on campaign pledges. Brutal interrogation techniques were banned, he declared. And the prison at Guantánamo Bay would be closed. What the new president did not say was that the orders contained a few subtle loopholes. They reflected a still unfamiliar Barack Obama, a realist who, unlike some of his fervent supporters, was never carried away by his own rhetoric. Instead, he was already putting his lawyerly mind to carving out the maximum amount of maneuvering room to fight terrorism as he saw fit...a new definition of “detention facility” was inserted, excluding places used to hold people “on a short-term, transitory basis.” Problem solved — and no messy public explanation damped Mr. Obama’s celebration. Without showing his hand, Mr. Obama had preserved three major policies — rendition, military commissions and indefinite detention — that have been targets of human rights groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks...Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent....In the wake of Mr. Awlaki’s death, some administration officials, including the attorney general, argued that the Justice Department’s legal memo should be made public. In 2009, after all, Mr. Obama had released Bush administration legal opinions on interrogation over the vociferous objections of six former C.I.A. directors. This time, contemplating his own secrets, he chose to keep the Awlaki opinion secret.." 

At least a few conservatives have essentially said "Hooray for Hypocrisy". Rich Lowry, of the National Review, essentially says that the Bush doctrine of counter terrorism was correct and now that Obama is doing it, the left agrees in that the left hasn't been critical of Obama. Mr. Lowry's view is capsulized in this quote, 

"..For most of the left, the highest principle of just-war theory is licet si Obama id faciat (it’s okay if Obama does it). This is how Gitmo, formerly a standing repudiation of all that we hold dear as a nation, becomes an afterthought when it is owned and operated by one Barack H. Obama...".

I like the support of hypocrisy. However, neither the NY Times nor Lowry actually gives a quote by candidate Obama that matches an action by President Obama. Without quotes it is just a plausible accusation rather than an example and it is also plausible that the candidate Obama used nuances in his, for example, seemingly anti Drone strike.

A similar 'I like the hypocrisy' opinion piece is in the Washington Post on-line. It is written by a Mark Thiessen. This one also does not provide any 'Obama is a hypocrite' documentation or citations but does provide a citation that Amnesty International called for arrest of George Bush. Thiessen implies that Amnesty International has not issued a peep of protest about Obama's actions (however, I don't see a good way to provide documentation of a none event other than get Amnesty International to make an actual statement saying they think Obama isn't doing anything wrong - and I'm pretty sure Amnesty Intl doesn't do stuff  like that).

NY Times article is here.
Lowry's opinion piece is here.
Thiessen opinion piece is here.

Doug Schoen: All Super Pacs are bad, except

Doug Schoen is a columnist for Forbes magazine.

He authored an opinion piece that denounced a super PAC for considering using an anti Obama ad that uses material from President Obama's former pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright. He calls this inexcusable, disgusting and some other names although he seems to acknowledge that the ad was never produced.

Then he says it is a shame that a pro Obama super PAC was forced to put out anti Romney ads in response. Yes, it seems Schoen believes or, possibly is pretending to believe that an ad that didn't get aired is disgusting and shameful, etc. but that the attack ad in response was necessary to counteract the non existent ad.

If he is pretending to believe it, then he is a hypocrite but it is quite possible he believes it.

Schoen's opinion piece is here.

Frank Bruni (NYTimes) accuses

Frank Bruni was the food critic at the NYTimes for several years and now writes on general cultural subjects as well as on food.

In a recent opinion piece he had this to say (in speaking about Bristol Palin),

"...But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed."

Bruni's piece is full of lots of criticism of both Bristol Palin and Rush Limbaugh. However, I'm unable to follow his argument. As best as I can tell, the accusation of hypocrisy against Bristol Palin is that she has criticized gay marriage while, herself being an unwed mother. I don't understand what one thing has to do with another. Bruni also attacks the Palin assertion that children are better off in a nuclear family than otherwise. Bruni does not accuse Palin of having no facts on which to base the assertion (which would be true) but instead criticizes Palin's ex fiance.

With respect to Limbaugh, Bruni says that since Limbaugh has been married four times, he shouldn't criticize gay marriage. Again, I'm unable to understand what one thing has to do with another.

Bruni's opinion piece is here.

NR Editor Johnathon Cohn admits something

Johnathon Cohn is a senior editor at the New Republic (the image is from about a few years ago when Cohn was already working on the health care issue).

He is a fan of the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare).

He recently wrote a piece stating that since the revenues raised by the insurance mandate are actually taxes, that then Obamacare is constitutional. I'm not going to comment about that.

Subsequent to his first piece on the subject, someone wrote to him and said that, if the mandate is a tax, then President Obama was breaking his 'no tax increases for people making under $250k/year' promise). Mr. Cohn essentially admits that this is true. If so, it would make Obama a hypocrite for saying one thing and meaning another, at least when the mandate takes effect (it is scheduled for 2014 as of this post) and assuming that Obama knew what Cohn knows which is likely. Interestingly, that does not bother  Johnathon Cohn in the slightest and I don't think it bothers many people either. The reason, I think, is that almost no one believed Obama when he made the promise.

Thus Cohn is admitting Obama is a hypocrite and implying that this hypocrisy was necessary for the common good. 

Cohn's article is here.


Note: my father subscribed to the New Republic for a few years before he died and my mom kept the subscription until she died - I renewed it once after she died in my own name but then did not renew it after that).

Context and Intent can nullify hypocrisy

Andrew Rosenthal has been editor of the editorial page of the NYTimes for several years. He has worked for the NYTimes since the 1980s. His father worked for the NYTimes. He knows a few things about newspapers and knows a few things about editorials.

He recently wrote a blog piece (which I don't think was in the paper edition of the NYTimes) admitting that then Senator and later candidate Obama harshly criticized former President Bush for the latter's signing statements and executive orders but now President Obama does the same thing. He has an interesting explanation for why this isn't hypocrisy.

Here it is,

"..I was appalled, and so was the Times editorial board (and so, in fact was Senator Barack Obama) when a Boston Globe reporter, Charlie Savage, documented Mr. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements and executive orders. But I am not appalled by the way Mr. Obama is relying on those instruments – as detailed in today’s Times by that same enterprising reporter, who now works for us. Context and intent make all the difference. ...."  

as Rosenthal explains later,

"..Unlike the Bush/Cheney team, Mr. Obama did not take office with the explicit goal of creating new powers for the presidency."

Really. Did the Bush/Chaney team have the explicit goal of creating new powers for the presidency? Mr. Rosenthal gives no evidence of this and I think I know why. No such evidence exists. Bush presumably didn't think he would have to issue signing statements at all. Obama presumably thought likewise. This is because many people simply do not have experience looking at actual statutory language, realizing how awful it is and having to try to find some way to work around that language. Given Rosenthal's experience, he not only should know this, he almost certainly does. Btw, I'm not accusing Rosenthal of hypocrisy here since he is simply carrying out an objective of defending the politician he likes while criticizing the one he doesn't like.

    Blog Post by Mr Rosenthal is here. The caricature used as an image is on Mr. Rosenthal's website.

Dr. Peggy Drexler and 'parenthood'

Dr. Drexler wrote something in the Huffington Post recently. She is against the automatic 'role assignment' of parents. Here is a quote,

"...To parent: It's a verb that barely existed a quarter of a century ago. By now, however, it is more useful than the verbs "to father" and "to mother," which were always of limited utility. "To father" refers to nothing more than the biological function of making a baby; it is the provenance of paternity suits...."


But here is Dr. Drexler at her own website, 


"...I am a long-married mother of a son and daughter.".

ooops.

Either she is a hypocrite or just tardy about updating her website to reflect her own research.

Post on the Huffington Post is here.
Dr. Drexler's website is here.

Salman Rushdie and Civility

If anyone would be expected to understand the idea of sensitivity and hypersensitivity, it would be Salman Rushdie (image of Rushdie at a film festival in 2011).

According to a recent article in the NYTimes (which carried the image shown above), Rushdie has a strong sense of civility as noted,

"...he seems to expect a certain civility. Mr. Rushdie blocked a Twitter follower last month [that would be Feb 2012] after the follower made a cutting remark about having read one of Mr. Rushdie’s books in high school. “Discourtesy not tolerated here,” Mr. Rushdie wrote in a tweet. “Your parents need to teach you your manners.”"

On the other hand,  here is a tweet made by Rushdie only yesterday,

Confused by news of Dick Cheney's heart "transplant." That implies he had one before.

9:09 AM - 25 Mar 12 via web

I think what Rushdie means is not "Discourtesy not tolerated by anyone" but "Discourtesy of me is not tolerated by me." Thus it would not be hypocritical to slam the 'follower' but then turn around and make a vicious comment about former VP Cheney. Of course, this doesn't mean that Rushdie is a nice guy, because, it shows he can be vicious (and the discourtesy to himself may irritate him because of an over sense of ego). 




NYTimes article here
Tweet here.

Two Cheers for double standards

Stanley Fish writing in a NYTimes blog (the same title as this post) essentially says that it is OK to be critical of Rush Limbaugh (right image) but not Bill Maher. This is so even though what he said wasn't as nasty as what Bill Maher (left) said and even though Maher never apologized.

He specifically says the the Tim Noah theory (in the post below) "won't wash".

Instead he says that the larger issue of having your ideas triumph (since you must view your ideas as the right ideas) justifies not being fair, specifically,

"... Rather than relaxing or soft-pedaling your convictions about what is right and wrong, stay with them, and treat people you see as morally different differently. Condemn Limbaugh and say that Schultz and Maher may have gone a bit too far but that they’re basically O.K. If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair. “Fair” is a weak virtue; it is not even a virtue at all because it insists on a withdrawal from moral judgment.
I know the objections to what I have said here. It amounts to an apology for identity politics. It elevates tribal obligations over the universal obligations we owe to each other as citizens. It licenses differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view. It substitutes for the rule “don’t do it to them if you don’t want it done to you” the rule “be sure to do it to them first and more effectively.” It implies finally that might makes right. I can live with that."

So I take this as a statement that some things (politics) are too important to avoid hypocrisy.



Mr. Fish's blog post on this is here.

Tim Noah Defends Carbonite

Actually, I'm not sure Tim Noah (a journalist and senior editor of The New Republic) means to defend Carbonite (a company which sells software to back up files in cyberspace). In fact, I have no evidence to support my guess that Noah may know that the Carbonite company exists.

However, Carbonite recently ended their sponsorship of the Rush Limbaugh radio program. This was because, apparently of Mr. Limbaugh's reference to Sandra Flute as a sl.te (Ms Flute is an unmarried student at Georgetown law school who advocated requiring employers to pay for contraception). Limbaugh subsequently apologized for that. Carbonite, however, retained sponsorship of the Mr. Ed show despite Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham the same thing (Ed Schultz did apologize for this but not for other insults of this kind).

If I didn't cite the Carbonite issue, the whole thing wouldn't be hypocrisy because people who criticized Rush Limbaugh would claim they didn't know and shouldn't have to look up information about the Mr. Ed show (this wouldn't apply to Carbonite).

Mr. Noah cites a few cases of liberals calling conservative women obscenity laden names and says that this isn't the same for two reasons.

1. Sandra Flute, although a public activist, is not a public figure.As Mr. Noah puts it, "...First, all of the people who were subjected to verbal abuse by the liberal- or left-leaning blowhards and smart-asses mentioned above are public figures. If you follow politics you know who they are. Fluke, on the other hand, though a political activist, was not really a public figure.."

2. Something to do with President Obama not being afraid of rappers (I didn't follow the logic since, among other things, I thought it was about calling women names). Mr. Noah considers this more important than #1 above.

3. Rush Limbaugh has a bigger audience than the liberals who called conservatives obscenity laden names.As Mr. Noah puts it, "...When Taibbi, Olbermann, Mahar, and Schultz tell liberals what to think few of us even hear what it is they're saying and no politician pays them any mind. (Sorry, fellas, but it's true.) It matters more to society what a person with a big following says than what a person with a small following says."

Mr. Noah did not address the fact that Limbaugh apologized and the liberals generally didn't. He also asserts, without citing facts, the influence of Limbaugh. He also doesn't weigh the fact that Ms Flute is seeking to be a public figure.

Notwithstanding those things, he probably believes them. However, what about the totality. Even if each individual liberal insult (unacceptably vile, in Noah's words) is less important than Limbaugh's doesn't the fact that there are many of them count for something. Also, why isn't Mr. Limbaugh's apology important.

Even given Mr. Noah's beliefs, I can't excuse him from the charge of hypocrisy.

Tim Noah's piece in TNR is here.
Kisten Powers (writing for the Daily Beast) gives a more complete list (than Mr. Noah did) of liberal misogyny here.
Michelle Malkin (who used to live in our neighborhood) gives a list here.  Ms Malkin is the subject of many such misogynistic insults (she got enough for one chapter of a book). She has stated that she left our neighborhood because of threats.

Story on Carbonite's actions regarding the Rush Limbaugh program and the Mr. Ed program is here. This story also has embedded video so it covers quite a bit.

Death threats, approximately contemporaneous with the Noah article, reported against Limbaugh here.
next day, Keith Obermann issues an apology (sort of) for misogynistic insults to SE Culp and Michelle Malkin here.

Not A Hypocrite by virtue of Insanity?

David Brock (image on left) is the founder (in 2004) of Media Matters for America. He was at one time a right wing journalist (this was during the Clinton era) and then early in the Bush presidency became a left wing journalist.

As an organization, Media Matters is pro gun control. In fact, in 2010, Media Matters took in $600k in contributions specifically earmarked for pro gun control advocacy. 

However, it seems that David Brock, has armed guards. Not only that, the armed guards do not seem to be licensed to carry guns (as the organization is in Washington DC where obtaining a license is difficult to impossible).

So it would seem that Mr. Brock is a hypocrite.

However, what if, Mr. Brock is insane. Apparently he has had previous problems with mental illness (beginning about the time he moved to the left much to the amusement of some conservatives). He is apparently abusive to employees, etc. Of course there is the obvious issue of why anyone who is, essentially, a hack leftist lobbyist would think people are trying to kill him. Assuming he is insane, his hypocrisy is not conscious and thus he wouldn't actually be considered a 'real' hypocrite, merely a technical hypocrite.   


One investigation (by hotair) of Media Matter (specifically on gun control) is here.
One Media Matters policy post on gun control is here.
Another (more recent) such post on gun control is here.
Daily Caller's investigation of the armed guards is here.
Daily Caller's followup of that situation is here.

Charles Blow and the twitter hypocrisy

Charles Blow (image shows him speaking at an event) is a columnist with the NYTimes. Back in 2008, he praised then Senator Obama for addressing the issue of single parenthood and its effect on society.

Now it is 2012 and when Mitt Romney made statements on the same issue that seem to me to be quite similar to Obama's 2008 comments, Mr. Blow had this to say on Twitter (the actual twitter post is no longer available),

"Let me just tell you this Mitt 'Muddle Mouth': I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear. #CNNdebate""

Mr. Blow has since apologized for that tweet (the reference to magic underwear has to do with the garments of high level Mormon officials) as being bigoted but not for being hypocritical.

Mr. Blow has since the apology tweeted another seemingly bigoted comment and it is still there two days later. The comment is,

"Time to scratch some of this right wing lice out of my timeline. Be back in a sec... #block"

In any event, the 2008 Obama quote and the 2012 Romney quote seem similar to me so I consider Mr. Blow to be a hypocrite (this blog isn't about bigotry but it seems that bigotry might be the factor that makes Mr. Blow unable to see his problem). Of course, if I'm wrong, then its not necessarily hypocrisy.



I'm getting the twitter quotes from Tom McGuire's blog "Just a Minute" because of the twitter deletion by Mr. Blow. That site also conveniently has both the Romney quote and the Obama quote.
Feb 23 tweet by Mr. Blow noted above is here.

Glenn Greenwald Calls His Best Friends 'Hypocrites'

or does he?

Actually, Glenn goes further than that. The opinion piece is called "Repulsive Progressive Hypocrisy". He also uses the phrase "repulsive liberal hypocrisy". He also has this interesting sentence,

"...Indeed: is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me."

The crux of Glenn's argument is that many progressives (or leftists or liberals) criticized Bush Administration officials for example, for wiretapping foreigners with expedited judicial permits but Obama decided to assassinate an American (who was working with foreign terrorists overseas) without even getting a judicial permit.

It is a telling point but here is the problem. Greenwald does not name a single individual person. Maybe he is too lazy to do this, maybe he couldn't find a case he liked, maybe he doesn't want to offend any individual but is willing to criticize a whole demographic.

Whatever the reason, the charge of hypocrisy isn't proved.

Glenn's Opinion Piece is in salon here

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.