Thompson (R)

In our last class, we talked about the mild hypocrisies, the polite evasions of Level One hypocrisy and the well-meaning lies of Level Two. Both levels share the same motivation—the desire to protect others.

They share something else, too. Us. We all do them all the time. They are the “everyday hypocrisies,” the art of fudging the truth as a social lubricant. Like all lies, they can be dangerous. Level One and Two hypocrisies can have unintended consequences, like having to eat your mother-in-law’s meatloaf every Christmas because you told her you loved it back before you married her daughter and she believed you and now you have to slip it to the dog under the table. But that’s OK, you fake it to make her happy.

There is nothing altruistic about Level Three hypocrisy. Level Three hypocrisy is pure selfishness; it tries to deflect criticism and censure of one’s behavior by smearing others. When a Level Three hypocrite sees the s**t about to hit the fan, he turns the fan around so someone else’s face gets dirty. When he uses hypocrisy to protect himself at someone else’s expense, there is nothing “unintended” about the consequences.

If you are the first guy to call an effeminate man “homo,” while you frequent every glory hole in town, you are committing a Level Three hypocrisy. When you curse a wino in the street on the way to the pharmacy to pick up your happy pills, that’s a Level Three hypocrisy. When you preach fidelity and abstinence from the pulpit while you’re snaking that cute intern, that’s Level Three hypocrisy.

Level Three hypocrisy is an equal opportunity sin. Conservatives have theirs (see above) and liberals have theirs as well. Demanding school busing for diversity, then moving to a gated community in the ‘burbs so your kids don’t have to hang out with the refugees is a garden-variety, Level Three, liberal hypocrisy. Blaming high prices on Big Oil or Big Pharma or Big Agro because your energy, health care and food policies screwed up the economy is a strictly non-partisan Level Three hypocrisy.

A Level Three hypocrite is looking out for number one, and only number one. He doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.

But a Level Four hypocrite does care. The goal of a Level Four hypocrisy is precisely to hurt people, deliberately, with malice aforethought. Level Four is the murder of hypocrisies.

Level One is saying one thing and meaning another. Level Two is saying one thing and doing another. Level Three is doing one thing and blaming another. Level Four is doing one thing and punishing another for doing the exact same thing.

It is a surprisingly small step between Levels Three and Four, but the difference is life and death. When abortion was illegal, and lawmakers would send their daughters down to Puerto Rico when they “got in trouble,” thousands of their constituents died in back alleys. When today’s legislator was yesterday’s Quaalude-taking, bong-sucking frat boy, you get a war on drugs that claims more victims than drugs themselves. The war on drugs is one massive, mandatory-sentence, cartel-empowering, nation-destroying Level Four hypocrisy from start to finish. Only there is no finish.

Level Three and Four hypocrisies are Frankensteins. They live forever, like the Cuban embargo, hypocritically justified first as a war on communism, then when communism died as a war on Castro, now with Castro on his deathbed as a war on dictatorship (as if Saudi Arabia were Switzerland.) The reasons shift constantly because they aren’t reasons. They are excuses. The real reason the Cuban embargo never stops restricting Americans and hurting Cubans is votes in Florida. It’s pure hypocrisy and everybody knows it, yet it never dies.

Hypocrisy is a slippery slope that gets steeper from Level One to Level Four. Once an hypocrisy gets going it’s hard to stop. That is why we here at Hypocrisy.com have our eyes wide open, looking right, left and straight ahead. And so should you.

We should also look in the mirror, while we’re at it. Because hypocrisy can start anywhere, and it kills souls, too.

Conservative talking head Laura Ingraham once said about Barack Obama not wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin, “It just goes to show he’s not ready for the big time.” However, she could easily have said the same about her president, George W. Bush, on his trip to Israel this past week. George Bush has proven time and time again that he’s not ready for the big time. He continues to make that case every time he opens his mouth. In a speech intended to be given in celebration of Israel’s 60^th year as a nation, George Bush managed to slip in a bit of partisan politics by comparing those in America who would create a dialogue with our supposed enemies as ‘Nazi appeasers.’

While Bush didn’t mention any names, it’s obvious that he was talking about the Democrats (since the Republicans do not use their words; they just indulge in preemptive military strikes), and he was more than likely referring to Barack Obama, who has encouraged greater dialogue with Syria and Iran. While Bush’s handlers claim he wasn’t talking about anybody in particular, they all admitted that Bush’s speech could have been interpreted as taking a swipe at Obama. Folks, that means that they wanted it to be interpreted that way. It’s difficult to understand why President Bush would bring up such an association with Nazis, given the fact that his grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped finance the Nazi party through his shady dealings with Nazi industrial, shipping and banking interests. But that’s a different article for another day. Today we’re talking about the president’s shameless use of this event for political purposes.

In just eight years, George Bush has managed to set American diplomacy back hundreds of years. It is an administration completely uninterested in diplomacy. Instead it employs the neo-con theory of pre-emptive strikes against those who will not bend to America’s will. If the intelligence doesn’t justify these wars, the Bush administration twists the intelligence to meet its needs or, failing that, simply lies to achieve its goals. This administration’s immediate answer to even the smallest amount of conflict is to flex America’s military might, such as sending a battleship to the Gulf as a warning to Iran. Talking to any nation that doesn’t fall in line with America’s ideology is out of the question. And anybody who suggests creating a dialogue with these nations is painted as ‘weak on terrorism’ or unpatriotic.

If George W. Bush were truly a leader, he would have put the election aside and used this event to highlight our long-standing alliance with Israel. However, in his determination to use his office to influence the outcome of the elections, our fearless leader squandered it on nasty, partisan politics. As has been the case so many times over the past eight years, George Bush is again exploiting the office of the U.S. presidency for political purposes. He has tarnished America’s once respected reputation. He is an embarrassment.

The democrats and mass media keep saying how bad the economy is but I just don’t get it. Maybe because 20+ years ago the economy really was awful. In comparison to today’s prices, gas was a bargain back then at $1.19 on average in 1980. But just two years earlier it had been fifty-nine cents. So gas doubled in price in only a couple of years and crossed the psychologically important barrier of $1.00. During the same two-year time period the unemployment rate jumped from 5.8% to 7.1% and by 1983 was at a high of 9.7%. Recently the unemployment rate has been increasing but it still has a way to go before it reaches the highs of 20 plus years ago.

The major economic indicator that I remember was the interest rate. Pretty hard to forget it when the year-end 1980 Federal Reserve interest rate was a whopping 21.50%! On the other hand, the prime rate was recently lowered to just 2.0%. That’s nearly a 20 percentage point difference. You can imagine the interest payments on houses and cars not to mention the rates on credit cards back then!

I graduated from college in 1980 just when the unemployment rate was heading toward nearly 10%, gas had doubled and my credit card company was charging me unfathomable rates. So when the politicians today get all upset over the economy I simply have to laugh.

I think that the media is making a mountain out of a molehill and handing the Democratic politicians a topic to use against the Republicans. Yes, I know that voters said that the economy was a major factor when they voted. But if you are told over and over again that the economy is tanking by people who are supposed to be reliable and trustworthy then you. too, will eventually believe that the economy is down. I just wonder how many people would say that yes the economy is bad for other people, but they are doing just fine.

I have decided to blog here because a blog about hypocrisy will never run out of material. You might think otherwise. You might say, “Well, Snark, I manage to survive without saying one thing and doing the exact opposite, most days, why can’t the politicians?”

Eight years after George Bush torpedoed the John McCain campaign for president In South Carolina, JohnCan bested the rest of the Republicans, with Huckabee coming in a very close second and Romney placed, while others, maybe showed or not.

Ducan Hunter of California, announced he would drop out of the race. Bets are that he will back McCain.

While McCain bagged, meaning avoided rather than winning, the Nevada caucus probably due to the high number of Mormons in Nevada who would vote for Mitt Romney, he is well positioned for Florida and Super Tuesday.

Thursday night the surviving six Republican presidential candidates debated at Myrtle Beach. South Carolina where John McCain is leading in the polls. Second-by-second tracking showed Huckabee and Thompson at the top and Paul at the bottom. Huckabee had perhaps the best line saying, “As the Air Force used to say; if you’re not catching flak you’re not over the target – so I must be over the target.” Thompson attacked Huckabee and some think as a longtime friend of McCain he’s decided if he can not win he will help McCain.

Newsmax’s John LeBoutillier gives this gritty post
New Hampshire assessment paraphrased as follows: McCain’s support is among the so-called mainstream media, independent voters, and a thin slice of Democrats. Romney is an empty suit – when you look deep into his eyes all you see is the back of his head. Huckabee is a damn good candidate but he doesn’t have broad enough support. Ron Paul isn’t getting anywhere. Fred Thompson is a political dead man. Hizzoner Rudy is fading fast. Maybe the Republican candidate hasn’t even started yet.

What the Republicans up to in the 2008 campaign according to Jonathan Martin of Politico.com