1 Boring Old Man

hy·poc·ri·sy   (h-pkr-s)
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.

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[Middle English ipocrisie, from Old French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, play-acting, pretense, from Greek hupokrisis, from hupokrnesthai, to play a part, pretend  : hupo-, hypo- + krnesthai, to explain, middle voice of krnein, to decide, judge; see krei- in Indo-European Roots.]

 

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Is hypocrisy a valid argument? In some ways, probably not. It’s an ad hominem attack, and as such – a logical fallacy. But it’s certainly damning in politics. Tom Delay just bit the dust over it. He preaches the nastiest view of  liberal Baiting around – runaway spending, big government, abortion, homosexuality, etc. and turns out to be raking in the dough from the sleaziest of lobbyists. Bush and Cheney are appalled at government leaks, and yet the selective leaking of information has been one of the tools of their trade.

Now there’s Rush Limbaugh. He semi-dodged the bullet with his narcotic addiction. Now he’s been stopped at the Miami Airport coming back from the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra with his name not on the bottle. Everyone seems to be jumping on the drugs angle because of his drug problem. On the face of it, this not much of a sin – he’s going to say that because he’s a celebrity, he had his name eliminated from the label – and that may well be true. He’s going to say that he has a right of privacy about the state of his erectile function. That’s probably true. But he’s going to have trouble explaining the part about being an unmarried man with a bottle of Viagra returning from a weekend at the most notorious sex-vacation spot on the planet, the Dominican Republic, because whatever he says, it’s not going to fit with his rants about the libertine liberals, and his support of the Religious Right hypermorality. That’s hypocricy, plain and simple.

Does it matter? Is hypocrisy a valid criticism of Mr. Limbaugh? We’ll see…

On a related matter, what about "character assasination?" Is it "character assasination" to focus on Rush Limbaugh’s regular behavior – three divorces, Narcotic Addiction, getting jacked up [literally] for a sex romp through the brothels of the Dominican Republic? Is that "character assasination" or "character assessment?" These are not really rhetorical questions. As much as I disagree with his political views, his arrogant and sarcastic attacks, and his self aggrandizement – I think his character, in the moral meaning of the world, is a valid argument against the views he spouts day after day, because his signature modus operandi is character assasination. The operative principle here is "don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time."