Hypocrisy?
So, it turns out that Newt Gingrich had an affair even while pursuing Clinton's impeachment. A lot of people are saying that this makes him a hypocrite. Really? How? Either we take him at his word, or we don't. What was said all along was that the extra-marital affair itself wasn't the problem, but that under oath lies about it were (plus the problem of it being the President and an intern). If that's the truth, while what Gingrich did was bad, it isn't hypocritical. The other possibility is that he was lying, the impeachment wasn't about lying under oath but just about going after a political opponent with any excuse possible. Which would be...an extreme form of Washington's status quo.
Labels: Politics
3 Comments:
sure, there was lying under oath. However, I would add that the line of questioning was totally irrelevant to the Whitewater charges. They were able to get away with it because they were a grand jury, but it was totally inappropriate for the prosecutors to even ask about this subject. What is the connection between Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater? come on! It was just a blackmail tactic!
The hypocritical thing here is, that they played up this whole affair thing as a big deal because they stood for "family values". They didn't really care about lying under oath. If they really cared about these things, how about impeaching the current president and vice president for manipulating evidence leading to a war in Iraq? not a chance that will happen.
If it were a Republican president with a Republican congress, they would have looked the other way.
The hypocrisy is subtle and indirect, but I call BULLSHIT, if Newt is claiming it was his noble duty to lead the charge for impeachment for lying about an irrelevant affair. Seriously.
Bill Clinton behaved badly, but the actual affair was not illegal. No one died because of it.
By
srspacemonkey, at Mar 14, 2007, 9:00:00 PM
See scenario two. As I recall, many Republicans said (sorry I don't remember what Newt said) "it's not about the sex, it's about the lying." So maybe some were railing about family values during the impeachment, but certainly not all were. I agree it was a silly thing to be impeached on and all that, but I don't buy it as hypocritical.
By
Maestro, at Mar 14, 2007, 9:56:00 PM
they can say that all they want, but Americans in general, thought it was about the affair. The charge of lying was just the technical reason for the impeachment, not the driving force.
Since when were politicians concerned about lying? I don't buy it.
This may not satisfy the technical definition of hypocrisy, but it certainly in the same neighborhood.
By
srspacemonkey, at Mar 14, 2007, 10:45:00 PM
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