Republican Hypocrisy category archive

I read the Michael Gerson column that the Booman refers to in this post.

As I did, I concluded that it was such a load of hooey that I would not waste my time blogging about it and that, if Gerson had any sincerity, he would admit that, in bitching about the right, he was repudiating his career, which he has devoted to putting lipstick on the wingnut pig.

But he doesn’t, and he didn’t.

Via C&L.

George Will can’t get George Will right.

It’s time to replace the phrase “principled conservative” with “agendaed conservative.”

Via C&L.

Via C&L.

Via Bartcop.

. . . and the result is delicious. It defies excerpt or summary.

Just read and savor it.

Driftglass often points out that many rightwing pundits are consistently wrong about everything, often contradicting what they have said in the past without blinking and without ever admitting or apologizing for error.

For example, think of the ones who thought total surveillance was the cat’s meow and the bee’s knees when the Bushies did it and that getting a list of phone calls (you know, like police departments supposedly do on television shows several times a night) is a detestable and abominable crime against nature when the Obama Justice Department did it*?

At Psychology Today Blogs, Guy Winch offers some reasons why some folks are incapable to admitting or apologizing for error. I think some of them might apply to David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Cal Thomas, Bill Kristol, and their fellows who are always right and never wrong, regardless of what they said yesterday. A nugget:

For non-apologists, saying ‘I’m sorry’ carries psychological ramifications that run far deeper than the words themselves imply as it elicits fundamental fears (either conscious or unconscious) they desperately attempt to avoid:

1. Admissions of wrong doing are incredibly threatening for non-apologists because they have trouble separating their actions from their character. If they did something bad, they must be bad people; if they were neglectful, they must be fundamentally selfish and uncaring; if they were wrong, they must be ignorant or stupid, etc… Therefore, apologies represent a major threat to their basic sense of identity and self-esteem.

__________________

*No, I can’t say I agree with the subpoena (a warrant, which must meet a higher standard of cause, should be required for such actions), but that’s not my point. Plus, unlike the Bushies, they did actually get a bleepin’ subpoena.

Via Bob Cesca.

I’ve had this article bookmarked for some time as worthy of a link. That it’s been around a week or so doesn’t make it any less worthy.

In it, Mark Segal shares his thoughts about who did what regarding Benghazi.

A nugget:

No matter who said what after the attack, or what you called the attack, or what talking points there were, you still had four Americans dead and they weren’t dead because of any talking points. They were killed for lack of security and that was because the Republicans refused to allocate the funds to protect our own people.

Benghazigate: how Republicans allowed terrorists to kill four Americans. It’s true, after all, that Republicans know how to work with terrorists. President Ronald Reagan sold arms to terrorists, in what was then called “Contragate.”

Gee, that might make a good political slogan: “Help a terrorist, vote Republican.”

If you carefully consider facts (Facts! We don’t want no stinkin’ facts!), you will see that the Republican Party is a party of slogans, a sounding cymbal, a tinkling bell, signifying nothing, except a naked desire for plunder and power.

It is an article of faith amongst the wingnutosphere that the evul fedrul guvmint is mostly a waste of money and doesn’t do anything productive (except, natch, for blowing people up in far away places with strange sounding names). Therefore, budgets can be cut ruthlessly and heedlessly, because all that spending is for nothing (except, natch, &c.)

Then, when they discover that the evul fedrul guvmint does do real things that affect real people, and that those heedless, ruthless budget cuts might affect stuff that they care about, they make a sound similar to that of stuck pigs.

With hurricane season approaching and the devastating Oklahoma tornado only days past, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering mandatory furloughs for all employees, including weather forecasters.

The proposal has produced sharp reaction from meteorologists and an elected official.

“The severe weather events in Oklahoma this week have further convinced me that we should not take any chance that avoidable furloughs might result in a degradation of weather prediction and forecasting services,” Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., wrote in a letter Wednesday to the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA.

Via Lane Crothers, who also comments on the right-wing scandal machinations.

Really, now . . . .

Zandar searches for symmetry.

Dick Polman’s introduction to his column on the success of the Man from the Appalachian Trail is delicious:

It’s fascinating to see how French the southern conservatives can be, when they decide to shelve their moral principles.

So’s the rest.

Via Bartcop.