Republican Hypocrisy and the Sins of the Mainstream Media
 

New book coming out, full article here:

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/...1_conason.html

Some choice exceprts:

"I say in the book that this is a species of what psychologists call projection. An excellent example is someone like Newt Gingrich, who put out long lists of words accusing Democrats of perversion and decadence, and who was involved in the most grotesque hypocrisy in terms of his violation of his marriage to his second wife. At the time that Gingrich was denouncing Clinton he wrote a book, which was supposedly a confession of some of his own mistakes –- and which had, I think, something like eight pictures of him with Marianne Gingrich, his then-wife, while he had been carrying on an affair for several years with a woman named Callista Bisek."

"George Will was having an affair with another conservative columnist. And his first wife tossed his belongings out on the lawn of the Maryland home."

"As I detail in the book, there’s a committee that sprang up in October of 2002 that was headed by [former Idaho Congresswoman] Helen Chenoweth. She was a symbol of Republican hypocrisy a couple of years earlier when her own colorful sexual history was exposed by newspapers in her home state of Idaho. She appears in 2002 fronting a committee that is urging pastors to get people out to vote, so that we can make sure that godly men are in charge of the country, during the Congressional mid-term elections of 2002. And this committee is clearly a front for Tom DeLay. Now could Tom DeLay really do that, unless he was utterly cynical? I mean, how would you select Helen Chenoweth to head a committee like that unless you were a total cynic? Unless you really had no beliefs?"

"It’s unbelievable. Everybody knows about Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart and those guys. But Focus on the Family had a guy who was a top staffer -- they had to kick him out because he was having an affair. There was another guy in the Family Research Council who was the head of their ex-gay ministry, and they find him in a gay bar in Washington. They had to kick him out for awhile. Matt Glavin, who worked for the Southeast Legal Foundation, which crusaded against the gays in the Boy Scouts, he was busted two times in a national park for fondling a ranger. This stuff leaves you almost speechless. When you look at the whole record of it, it’s mind-boggling. And yet they’ll go on. And someone else will take the place of a guy like that and just continue with the same rhetoric because most Americans just don't know how fraudulent this attitude is."

"All the goals that the founders had for the United States are not ideas that contemporary so-called conservatives are much interested in. I’ll tell you what they’re interested in: They’re interested in achieving their own power, in amassing their own wealth, in protecting themselves -- and their interests -- against the interests of the majority. Those are the goals of the leaders of the movement that now calls itself conservatism. And it has very little to do with American traditions and American ideals."

Not to mention Bill Bennett's little vegas habit, or Clarence Thomas's prediliction to share his pornography at the office... EACH side has it's skeletons. We do, they do, and hell...if the greens stick around long enough, they'll get their share.

The politics of getting personal just always bite people in the ass...and everyone gets hurt in the end. The last paragraph makes some sense...but it's better to demonstrate that supply side econ doesn't work, to sell the working class on more targeted tax relief that makes a difference in their life, not the life of the CEOs.... That's a better way to convey the liberal message than to slam at the conservatices private lives.

So is the point here that the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats? Hey!! We Libertarians have known this for years.

Of course, I imagine <b>our</b> windows ain't none to clean either, if you stare at 'em long enough.

*snicker*

i dont necessarily blame that just on the republicans. but since the republicans are much more strict on family and values and all that stuff, it shows up more easily.

yeah thats true The_Dude...

it stands out a lot more if you preach one thing and practice another

This could just as easily been called "Political Hypocracy and the Whores Who Spin it."

All who are not republican or democrat rejoice...as you haven't been investigated yet ;-)

While there are few fans of Bill Maher out there, I did like something he said on Larry King the other night. When asked if George Bush's presidency should be brought down over the intelligence debacle, he replied no. He said he is tired of scandal. He's tired of the only goal in politics these days being to destroy the other party.

It's not about doing what's best for the country, it's about digging up enough dirt to embarass each other and politically destroy the republicans/democrats.

I'm with Bill Maher, I'm tired of it, too.

JumpinJesus, I think that he did agree that people should be held accountable for the intelligence debacle, he just didn't support an impeachment scandal.

I agree with the idea that there is too much scandal and hypocrisy and too little acountability and dignity. People should be held accountable for their hypocrisy, but their hypocrisy should not be a source of lurid scandal.

I guess it's kind of like the difference between justice and revenge.

A funny thing about the mainstream medias complete blunder in the past few years...Does anyone watch the Daily Show? I think it's the smartest, and most funny, show on TV. The Daily Show was the first "new" program to bring to light that Haliburton, the VP's former company, had been awarded a multi-billion dollar contract w/out even going through the normal bidding process!

Sorry Ralvek but you're way off. Haliburton went through the "normal" bid process when they competed to get the "No-bid" contract that they won. Basically it's a contractual agreement to provide certain specific services to the government should the need arise over the course of a defined period of time.

The contracts in Iraq fell under this competitively won contract.

Yes, let's just vote him out next year and hope he doesn't invade many more countries before then. :)