Hypocrisy round-up

The word hypocrisy gets thrown around alot recently, but there are several new examples that jumped out of the internet pages at me this morning. For example, John Edwards who recently condemned Fox News, a subsidiary of News Corp. and declared he’d not appear at a debate hosted by the successful cable news channel. Well, the New York Post discovered that the former senator, shyster lawyer who channels dead babies on command, hedgefund advisor who learned about poverty by stealing from his investors, and charity manager who funnels off tax-free donations to secretly fund his campaign expenses, took $800,000 from HarperCollins, another News Corp. subsidiary;

John Edwards, who yesterday demanded Democratic candidates return any campaign donations from Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of the media mogul’s companies.

The Edwards campaign said the multimillionaire trial lawyer would not return the hefty payout from Murdoch for the book titled “Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives.”

The campaign didn’t respond to a question from The Post about whether it was hypocritical for Edwards to take money from News Corp. while calling for other candidates not to.

In addition to a $500,000 advance from HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp., Edwards also was cut a check for $300,000 for expenses.

Edwards claimed $333,334 in royalties from last year’s release of the book, according to media accounts. The campaign said last night that those funds were part of the advance.

Of course he claims he gave the money to charity, but he refuses to offer proof of his benevolence.

The other day, I wrote about Barack Obama’s naive threat to Pakistan to invade with US troops unless Pakistan passes his test of an acceptable level of violence against al Qaeda in Pakistan. With all of the evidence we have that Iran is involved in war against us, why isn’t Obama beinging just as intolerant of Iran’s sheltering of terrorists, al Qaeda or otherwise?  Well, probably because admitting that Iran is a threat justifies our involvement in Iraq and the naive and inexperienced Obama doesn’t want to piss off the anti-war-at-any-cost whackos at Daily Kos.

Speaking of Daily Kos, EJ Dionne of the Washington Post decided to defend the vulgar, hate-filled Daily Kos today. Comparing Marko’s internet playground for the mentally unstable to Rush Limbaugh, Dionne wrote;

Personally, I dislike the use of obscenity on the Web, and many online posts are way too nasty. But the right wing, suddenly so concerned with the niceties of political discourse, did not worry much about what its militants said about Clinton, Al Gore or John Kerry. Limbaugh even blamed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on a president who had been out of office for eight months. I’m still waiting for his apology.

George Bush and Dick Cheney have heaped praise on Limbaugh (“Well, Rush, you’ve got a great show, as always,” Cheney said during one of his many interviews) because he’s an effective organizer for the right — even if Limbaugh has, of late, become disenchanted with some of Bush’s policies. Limbaugh desperately needs a Democratic president. Another Clinton would be perfect.

Um, EJ, Kos made obscenity on the internet an acceptable part of the debate. And resorting to obscenity on the internet makes the left look childish and immature, well, more childish and immature since most of the Left’s charges against president Bush are just ridiculous. So the Democrat candidates are aligning themselves with the extra-chromosone Left and you’re proud of it? And it hardly compares with Rush Limbaugh’s crowd at all.

A Washington Times editorial alerts us to another impending CAIR lawsuit;

Another week, another threat of lawsuit by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. This time, the group behind the Minneapolis “flying imams” lawsuit are targeting the Young America’s Foundation, the nonprofit that owns President Reagan’s Santa Barbara Ranch. YAF’s “offense”: Inviting author and terrorism analyst Robert Spencer to speak at a conference yesterday afternoon for a lecture titled “The Truth About the Council on American-Islamic Relations.” Among other things, the real CAIR story features less-than-flattering facts, such as the “unindicted co-conspirator” label CAIR earned in June in a Hamas terror-funding case, and the several people in the group’s orbit who have been indicted on terrorism-related charges. CAIR would rather try to frighten its critics than debate them.

As CAIR’s lawyer warned YAF Wednesday: “Our clients have instructed us to pursue every available and appropriate legal remedy to redress any false and defamatory statements that are made at the session.” This comes from a group which claims to “encourage dialogue.”

This is an outrageous bid at intimidation. A more normal advocacy organization would seek to debate its opponents. Sadly, this litigiousness is commonplace for CAIR, whose activities could be scarcely more different from its mission statement. CAIR claims to strive to “be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding” and to “enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.” It could scarcely do less of each. 

It seems you can hardly mention hypocrisy these days without including CAIR in the discussion. I’ll let the Washington Times editorial stand on it’s own without my comments – they always do it so well.

Category: Antiwar crowd, Foreign Policy, Politics, Society