On hypocrisy

From Victor Davis Hanson, on the subject of hypocrisy, and the differing treatment of liberals and conservatives by the media:

... But perhaps the most glaring example is the strange case of former Senator and Vice President Al Gore. He was canonized with various awards including, but not limited to the Nobel Prize, on the basis that his disinterested global campaign to raise concern about global warming had given us all an eleventh hour reprieve from ruining the planet.

Remember the Gore themes: we are destroying the planet by gratuitous use of fossil fuels. Each of us must know his own “carbon footprint,” and adjust accordingly. But then we learned, in addition to the movies and books, Gore had created a carbon-exchange company, a modern version of medieval penance, in which for a fee Gore’s people would evaluate one’s environmental sins, and suggest how one could get right with the gods of the environment.

And on and on it went until in just a few years Gore’s net worth went from $2 million to nearly $100 million. But the additional rub was that Gore lived in an energy-gobbling big house, flew in carbon-polluting private jets, and seemed to benefit financially from the very policies he was lobbying governments to embrace. None of these facts had any effect on the media, the Nobel Prize committees, or his general public stature. Today he remains a liberal icon, not a hypocrite who seemed to live the carbon high-life he demonized so publicly.

Is there some generic, overarching explanation that accounts for the lopsided charge of hypocrisy?

I think we must go back to the nature of the liberal, egalitarian mind that professes the greater care for the welfare of the commons. In contrast, the conservative, the Republican, the libertarian, in dog-eat-dog fashion believes that life is sort of a tragic free-for-all, and to the victor goes the spoils, who then by his own sense of right must help the poorer and less well off. The latter are less sensitive, less caring, more goal orientated; the former are mellower, more sharing, and pit the power of ideas, morality, and fairness against the overwhelming power of money and influence.

Presto! The beleaguered, more moral liberal must be given greater leeway, even can employ sometimes questionable means, since his ends are the more exalted. Yes, Al Gore gets to fly private, and have a few extra rooms in his mansion, but he is in pain, sacrificing on the planet’s behalf, and needs a more ample footprint than the rest of us to save us from ourselves.

Who cares if George Bush’s Texas ranch house has a lighter footprint than Gore’s mansion, given that Bush thwarted Kyoto and Gore promoted it? Yes, Timothy Geithner skipped a few thousands in taxes, but who wouldn’t if you were trying to reformulate an entire tax code to level the playing field? Yes, Bill slipped up with Monica, but Monicas come and go — a woman’s right to chose, however, simply does not and cannot. Yes, Eliot Spitzer had a bothersome desire for young prostitutes, but he was a crusader against Wall Street greed. And yes, the previously mentioned John Edwards was campaigning to the left of Clinton and Obama, and thus his “problems” deserved some sort of reflection and gestation, given his voice on the behalf of the poor. ...

Read it here.