Rules of Civility: Glenn Beck Style!

I know that attacking right-wing blowhards for their hypocritical douchebaggery is swinging at the low hanging fruit, but sometimes the urge is just impossible to resist.

On his show today, Beck spent a few minutes decrying the behaviour of people in Los Angeles who, for several hours, exploited a pricing mistake by a gas station without ever bringing the dumb oversight to the attention of the staff. Beck claimed this was a breach of our “moral obligations” and to reinforce his point, he piously wielded a copy of George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation as being a model that we should all strive to live by…

And now, here’s Beck practicing what he preaches about civility and decent behaviour by spending 8 full minutes of his radio program the other week making the sound of vomiting into a bucket at the thought of Meghan McCain baring herself for a PSA about the risks of skin cancer.

Funny thing about those “Rules of Civility” that Beck was flaunting as if they were Holy writ from the Founding Father. In fact, they’re based on a code of conduct devised by the French Jesuits in 1595 and most probably were just copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by the young Washington’s schoolmaster.

Finally, where does Beck’s “moral obligation” enter into the equation of that free market gemstone Caveat emptor? This, of course was a far more rare case of Caveat venditor, but the principle is essentially the same, no?

Hypocritical Thinking

It’s almost too easy pointing out instances of blatant hypocrisy in politics (whether it be from the right or the left) and I wonder if anyone really cares. Haven’t we become entirely numb to this sort of thing by now? Isn’t it almost expected that the very nature of our little game of “democracy” dictates that virtually all politicians (and pundits for that matter) will be dissembling frauds?

Although it may be irresistible at times, I have to admit that the endless game of highlighting egregious duplicity and intellectual dishonesty on the part of one or another political “team” and attempting to score points from it, the exercise gets pretty wearisome. After all, if there’s no serious consequence for duplicity, or in the case in point here, not even the slightest embarrassment by politicians at cynically making an opportunistic u-turn, then what difference does it make?

Hey, Big Spender

Sarah Palin may not know what the Vice-President does, but gosh darn it, the Republicans have been breaking the bank making her look absolutely fabulous trying to become one!

A $75,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus? I’m sure that “Joe the Plumber” can relate to that, huh? And $4,716.49 on hair and makeup in the month of September! Didn’t the wingnuts blow a gasket about John Edwards’ $400 haircut? What a laughable bunch of hypocrites.

A New “Tory Dynasty”

Shorter Bob Plamondon: Stephen Harper has no conservative principles or scary ideological “hidden agenda” — it’s all just about getting and holding power for its own sake.

Gee, isn’t that what “Conservative” supporters used to bitterly criticize the Liberals for? I guess it’s another one of those instances where it’s different now…

McCain’s “Housing Problem”

That John McCain can’t recall how many houses he owns really shouldn’t be a big deal. Nor should it matter that he wears expensive Ferragamo loafers, cheated on his first wife, committed bigamy and was deeply involved in a huge corruption scandal in the past. After all, everyone knows that big houses, expensive haircuts, marital infidelity, and so on are only significant when talking about Democrats. Come on folks, get with the program!

If we’re to believe John Hinderaker (“Hinkdrocket”) at Powerline, McCain’s asceticism and complete disinterest in worldly possessions actually makes him something close to being a saint. “If a reporter asked me how many ties I own, there’s no way I could answer. Just like McCain, I’d tell him he has to ask my wife. Likewise if someone wants to know how many Wii games my kids have.”

This and other hilarious responses from around the wingnuosphere have been compiled for your amusement by jokers at Sadly No!

Pretty Sad

So-called “Breck Girl” admits to cheating and lying.

Well, I guess we can put those rumours about John Edwards being “a faggot” to rest now. Although it’s hardly satisfying to learn instead, that by his own belated admissions, he’s a dirty rotten scoundrel.

Thank goodness that no “conservatives” have ever fallen from grace or engaged in such behaviour! Unlike say… Bruce Barclay, former Cumberland County commissioner, videotaped hundreds of sexual encounters — many with male escorts — using cameras hidden throughout his Monroe Township home. Matthew Joseph Elliott, former aide to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child. Vito Fossella, the only Republican member of Congress from New York City, admitted to police to having a child out-of-wedlock when stopped for drunk driving. Robert McKee, Republican delegate from Western Maryland, announced his resignation after authorities seized two computers, videotapes and printed materials from his Hagerstown home in a child pornography investigation. McKee also resigned his position as executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County. Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, a Utah retailer of “family-friendly” tapes and DVDs (Hollywood films with the “dirty parts” cut out of them), arrested and booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Derek Walker, former Eagle Scout and candidate seeking the GOP nomination in a race for north-central Pennsylvania district, was charged with felony burglary and criminal trespass stemming from an encounter last year with an ex-girlfriend, during which he allegedly broke into her home and used his cell phone to videotape her engaged in an intimate moment with another man. And that was just this year! (Many, many more where that came from.)

But never mind. You know those “conservatives”… Why, they’ll even emerge from their “dignified isolation in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada” to crow about the immoral hypocrisy of a Democrat that can’t keep his dick in his pants if it means seizing the moral high ground, if only for a fleeting moment.

Do As We Say, Not As We Did

You have to wonder about the motives of billionaire Peter G. Peterson planning to spend $1 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “b”) to force America to get serious about the perils of deficits and debt, when over the last seven years, the federal debt has gone from $5.7 trillion in 2001 to $9.372 trillion as of June 27, 2008. Moreover, despite all of Bush’s talk about “small government” and paying lip service to the memory of Ronald Reagan, the $3 trillion federal government has actually become over 50 percent larger during his term in office — even with a Republican majority in the Senate and the House in his first six years in office!

Head of the new foundation David Walker says the new Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF) will be non-partisan, although Peterson has long known McCain and supports his presidential campaign.

It seems more than a little odd that there wasn’t much zeal for evangelizing about slaying the deficit and forcing the government to “live within its means” when money was being squandered on tax cuts for the rich and unproductive wars on the other side of the globe. Now that there’s a possibility the Democrats might be in charge however, all of a sudden fiscal responsibility is crucially important again. Go figure.

Hypocrisy!

In response to inveterate fuckwit Mickey Kaus thinking that he’d caught out Obama in a glaring moment of condescending hypocrisy for stating that “you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish” when he doesn’t actually speak the language himself, Jesse Taylor at Pandagon writes:

If it is, in fact, hypocrisy, then I look forward to our next President, a multilingual farmer physicist parent reverend atheist author chemist doctor lawyer astronaut firefighter acrobat chef.

Too funny.