{"id":414,"date":"2008-09-06T17:23:29","date_gmt":"2008-09-06T21:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=414"},"modified":"2008-09-06T17:23:29","modified_gmt":"2008-09-06T21:23:29","slug":"the-politics-of-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/the-politics-of-hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three different items today, all about hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

It’s one thing to change your mind. I respect it. We’ve all changed our mind at some point. Maybe it’s because of personal experience, or a compelling argument, or learning new facts. Whatever the reason, I respect the evolution of personal opinion.<\/p>\n

But what about taking a position just for expediency? In this case, I’m not talking about taking a position just to be well-liked. I’m talking about taking a position so that you can score points\/defend the candidate of your choice, facts be damned. I’m talking about looking at some characteristic of a candidate, and then supporting or condemning it, simply because you like or dislike the candidate.<\/p>\n

That’s the stuff that I find so appalling. I can’t stand the thoughtless, useless attack for the sake of the attack. If you don’t like a candidate, if you have a problem with their issues, great, I invite you to make your case. But if you’re just yapping because you can, then I invite you to shut up.<\/p>\n

Jon Stewart made a montage of people yammering about “the gender card.” He has some great examples of the flip-flopping that I abhor. (hat tip to Matt<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Similar behavior, but different issue: Palin’s grandchild to be. The Globe wrote about some WRKO talk host<\/a> calling out his listeners as hypocrites:<\/p>\n

WRKO conservative talk host Reese Hopkins<\/strong> told listeners 17-year-old Bristol Palin<\/strong>‘s pregnancy makes him question VP hopeful Sarah Palin<\/strong>‘s parenting skills. Angry Republican listeners blew up his e-mail box, claiming Bristol’s condition is family business. And Hopkins, who talked extensively on-air about the suspicious Gloucester teen pregnancy pact, was a little shocked. “You called these girls sluts, you said their parents were horrible,” he said of his listeners. “But in 125 e-mails I have stacked in front of me, you’re telling me [Bristol Palin’s pregnancy] is not a big deal.” Hopkins went back to the e-mails he received on the Gloucester story and compared them to his Palin e-mails. He found 70 listeners who flip-flopped on the teen pregnancy issue and invited them to explain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good for him. Frankly, I don’t think any of us can judge any of these parents from this distance. If you judge one, judge them all – you don’t get to cherry-pick the ones you happen to like.<\/p>\n

Last, but certainly not least, my friend Darienne weighed in<\/a> on McCain’s speech at the Republican convention:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Americans want us to stop yelling at each other, OK?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCain smiled tonight, looking about as sincere as Steve Martin.<\/p>\n

That he expects me to believe that after the spectacle of the past few days may be most insulting of all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She hit the nail on the head. How can McCain put up a three-day parade of attack dogs, from Romney to Palin, and then pretend that it’s not what he wanted to happen? I guess you believe him if you want to, but I think his actions speak louder than his words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three different items today, all about hypocrisy. It’s one thing to change your mind. I respect it. We’ve all changed our mind at some point. Maybe it’s because of personal experience, or a compelling argument, or learning new facts. Whatever the reason, I respect the evolution of personal opinion. But what about taking a position […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}