Defining Hypocrisy
Sen. Inhofe in 2003:
“But the Democrats, who cannot muster a majority to oppose him, are seeking, in effect, to change the Constitutional majority-vote requirement. By sustaining this filibuster, they are asserting that 60 votes, not 50, will be required to approve Mr. Estrada. If successful, their effort will amount to a de facto amendment to the Constitution. This outrageous grab for power by the Senate minority is wrong and contrary to our oath to support and defend the Constitution,” Inhofe said.
Sen. Inhofe last night:
“I understand that Judge Hamilton’s nomination is still pending before the Judiciary Committee, but I had to come to the floor to speak so that the American people, who are very concerned about this nomination, will know that I and my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee are taking interest and are not just going to let this nomination sail through. In fact I will filibuster David Hamilton.“
You can’t make this stuff up. (HT Steve Benen)
“You can’t make this stuff up.”
Uh, anyone with a passing familiarity with politics would be more surprised if there wasn’t type of reversal every time power changed hands between the parties. Notice, the hypocrisy goes both ways here: in a shocking reversal, Democrats are now considering measures to circumvent filibusters, whereas they fiercely opposed these measures four years go.
Are you ignorant of politics or do you just like partisan cheap shots?
My current favorite is Republicans talking about one-party rule and complain about being left out of the process by Nancy Pelosi. But remember Dennis Hastert wanting legislation to pass only if a majority of Republicans favored it? That was bipartisanship at its best.
Right. Neither party is particularly sensitive to the other when they are in the majority; and once in the minority they whine about the lack of bipartisanship and being shut out. It’s one of the most predictable and banal features of our political process; one might as well ‘you couldn’t make this stuff up,’ after observing the sky was blue or that the sun rose this morning.
I think a fuller explanation shows why this is not quite the height of hypocisy that you claim.
First, by 2003, Democrats in the Senate had blocked more judicial nominees from coming to a vote than any other minority in history. The Republicans did behave differently when a Democrat was in the White House on this front – that’s a fact.
Second, Inhofe is proposing to filibuster – a time honored tradition – while the Democrats never actually filibustered, but used procedural processes based on the cloture rules so that the nomination wouldn’t even be brought to the floor. Daschel never said, I will filibuster, he said I won’t let you debate or vote.
My perception is that the first shred of bipartisanship have about disappeared in congress – the arguments are like two lawyers arguing out of ideology instead of the compromise for the common good.
The Presiden tsits above, trying to be judge like, but gamesmanship devoted to winning at all costs rules the scene.
Is this hypocrisy by those sworn to serve us? Of course it is.
Sean said: “First, by 2003, Democrats in the Senate had blocked more judicial nominees from coming to a vote than any other minority in history. The Republicans did behave differently when a Democrat was in the White House on this front – that’s a fact.”
That’s not a fact. It’s only half a fact. Here’s the other half.
“In fact, while Democratic senators used the filibuster to block 10 of Bush’s 229 first-term judicial nominees, the Republican-controlled Senate prevented approximately 60 Clinton nominees from even receiving a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, much less a vote on the Senate floor. And while Senate Republicans under Clinton strictly enforced a “blue slip” rule — which allows one home-state senator to prevent a nomination from moving forward — they greatly relaxed this rule under Bush to circumvent Democrats’ objections to several nominees.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502180004
It’s good to be reminded of how the Democrats, in particular the sanctimonious Charles Schumer, filibustered Estrada. Many at the time echoed the New York Sun’s judgment of Schumer vs Estrada, an assessment which seems to have been prophetic.
“His performance on the Judiciary Committee has been nothing short of a disgrace. Time and again he has used the threat of filibuster to block worthy nominees to the federal courts on little more than his suspicion of a conservative agenda. His tactics will come back to haunt the judicial nominees of Democratic presidents.”
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/waiting-for-estrada/3414/
“It’s fun to laugh at a hypocrite, and recent years have given Americans a great deal to laugh at…Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don’t need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And best of all, contempt is made to share…Tell an acquaintance a cynical story that ends with both of your smirking and shaking your heads and voila, you’ve got a bond.”
“Well, stop smirking. One of the most universal pieces of advice from across cultures and eras is that we are all hypocrites, and in our condemnation of others’ hypocrisy we only compound our own. Social psychologists have recently isolated the mechanisms that make us blind to the logs in our own eyes. The moral implications of these findings are disturbing; indeed, they challenge our greatest moral certainties. But the implications can be liberating, too, freeing you from destructive moralism and divisive self-righteousness.”
Jon Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, pp. 59-60.
I thought Juan Wiliams’ analysis on NPR Monday morning was at bottom correct.
The dynamic had to do with polyical self justification.
That kind of argumentation was evident in the supposed discussion on Anderson Cooper last night between Paul Begalla and Ari Fleischer.
Now today’s paper here has the inimitable Rich Lowery saying “Rightly understood, the memos should be a source of pride…”
I think that means understood from the political right, but certainly not by most Americans.
You can argue about who is more of a hypocrite or whether we’re all hypocrites (does that advance the torture memo release discussion?) but the posturing going on needs not to be looked at kindly.
I’ll second (or fourth or fifth) the obvious point that politicians of all parties flip their views — on executive authority, on filibusters, etc. — depending on who is in power.
If you want to recall the Estrada saga, the line “you can’t make this stuff up” would be more properly used about the memo written to Senator Durbin reporting that various Democratic interest groups wanted to block Estrada, who as a “Latino” was “especially dangerous” (!!):