All Posts Tagged With: "hypocrite"

Perata , family and friends face fines and decades in prison if convicted.

According to an article on the EASTBAYEXPRESS website the feds likely will file charges against the California state Senate boss Don Perata (D). The FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, and a federal grand jury have been investigating whether the senator took bribes or kickbacks in exchange for providing official government favors to close friends, business associates, and major campaign donors. Others could also be indicted.

Using the age-old formula Perata has denied everything; admitted nothing, and blames the probe on others. Public records show that he is taking the investigation very seriously. Through May 17, the last state filing deadline, his legal defense had racked up $1,921,779 in expenses since the probe began. In the first four-and-a-half months of this year alone, his expenses totaled $445,925. However, Perata still has plenty of money at his disposal. According to state records, he’s sitting on $1.97 million in four campaign accounts. In addition, the state Democratic Party just donated $250,000 to Perata’s legal defense fund on July 1.

Based on interviews and subpoenas obtained by newspapers, the investigation has included: An examination of the Ron Cowan Parkway, a $40 million publically funded road between Oakland airport and an Alameda business park. As the Express first reported in March 2006 (see “Road to Nowhere,” 3/1/06), Perata strongly urged the Port of Oakland and the city of Alameda to hire a lobbyist to help obtain federal approval of the road even though the lobbyist’s assistance was unnecessary.

Lily Hu’s role in a 2002 BART seismic retrofit bond. As first reported in the Oakland Tribune in November 2004, BART paid Hu $112,000 from June 2001 to December 2003. BART also employed Polka as a consultant.

And the hiring of Staples by several card clubs in an attempt to stop an Indian tribe from opening Casino San Pablo, which was to be the first full-fledged casino in the Bay Area. As first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in April 2005, Perata had strongly urged the clubs to hire Staples at a time when Staples also was paying Perata to stay in office. The scam was soundly rejected by California voters.

“Hypocrisy” is kind of a strange word. It’s made up of two Greek words, “hypo,” meaning “under,” and “krisis,” which has to do with judging or condemning. The word came to mean “answerer.” The puzzle is how those two basic words got together to mean that and then eventually “one who plays a part, pretends” (Webster’s Unabridged). In the ancient Greek theater, it was probably Aeschylus who added a second actor. He was known as the “hypocrites” because he answered the protagonist. In doing so, he wore a mask, and that is undoubtedly where our idea of the hypocrite as one who is one thing and pretends to be another comes from. The words spoken by that second actor are not his, nor are they words he might be expected to speak in the marketplace. They are the words of Aeschylus, Sophocles or some other dramatist. Our modern hypocrite is a person who pronounces words from behind a mask, words that do not at all reflect what that person truly is or believes.

A minister who claims to represent the God of the Bible, who is described as a God of love, and then spews out venomous hatred, is a prime example. Also, I remember a championship basketball player at a university where I taught who spoke at a junior high school and urged the children there not to take drugs. Two weeks later he was arrested for dealing drugs. That is also a perfect example. The politician who sits down with his or her handlers to ask what stance will influence the most people favorably, regardless of his or her personal views, is also a hypocrite, as is one who pretends to agonize over the poor and downtrodden but lives the life of an elitist.

Our word “person” also comes from Classical Greek theater and, somewhat ironically, means “mask.” In fact, in dealing with prominent figures in politics, sports or entertainment, we sometimes ask, “Who is the person behind the mask?” The opposite of hypocrisy is something called integrity. The person who possesses and practices it is one who is an integral whole, whose appearance and internal reality are of a piece.

We encourage you to tell your friends about this poll so we can see how mainstream media driven polling results compare to results at Hypocrisy.com. Comment on this article to discuss Obama Hypocrisy or Integrity and Honesty too.

If you are an Obama supporter help support the liberals on this site here http://www.hypocrisy.com/2008/02/22/i-love-obama/

You can select multiple answers
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

And found none.

While the bias of most pundits and authors and commentators of all kinds is usually pretty obvious, we determined that the Chief Hypcrite should be bias free. We are proud of that determination.

So we commissioned a study

Welcome to the Inaugural Fake Interview by Chief Hypocrite, using proprietary channeling techniques, PPUC (process patent under consideration).

We decided to choose to interview the President of the United States. We are honored by this choice:

Chief Hypocrite: Mr President, before we get started I must tell you how impressed I am that you have become the President of the United States, not once but twice.

W: Well, Chefe, this here interview, ’snot really my ballgame like when I owned that team down there in god country, What you using some kind of powerful juju stick? The American, they people spoke good both times. Talk to the people.