1st Annual Pundit Review Hypocrisy Olympics
The 'They Seemed Like Nice Fellows' Category
Gold Medal:Democratic Senator Robert Byrd
(Michelle Macklin, March 8, 2001) EX-KLANSMAN Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase "white nigger" twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity training ... not. The ex-Klansman, you see, is a Democrat. Democrats can join hate groups and utter the ugliest racial slurs and get away with it because they are Democrats. They belong to the party of racial tolerance and understanding. They're paragons of virtue, and the rest of us are bigoted rubes.
Silver Medal: Trent Lott
During Bill Clinton's impeachment it came out that Senate Majority leader at the time, Trent Lott, had longstanding ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group known for its white supremacy beliefs. When asked about his relationship to the group Lott denied there was one. His press secretary said he was 'vaguely' aware of the group. Then pictures of Lott at group meetings as well as other uncomfortable facts started to come out. Lott had lied during the impeachment of Bill Clinton when he was daily criticizing Clinton for lying.
The 'It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time' Category
Gold Medal: Senator Robert Toricelli
(NewsMax) WASHINGTON - Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., led congressional efforts in the mid-1990s that handcuffed the CIA's abilities to recruit spies - a key policy that helped allow the attacks of Sept. 11 to take place with no intelligence warnings.
Current and former CIA operatives say that Clinton administration policies, which forbade the CIA from recruiting known terrorists and other criminals, left the U.S. government bereft of all intelligence about such terrorist groups.
Torricelli's efforts paid off with the Clinton administration, which moved to ban the use of spies or the recruitment of spies that had any involvement with criminals or terrorists. Torricelli effectively blinded the CIA.
(editor's note) After September 11 Toricelli called for an investigation into the intelligence failure that led to the tragic events. What a hypocrite.
Gold Medal: Robert Reich
As
a former Secretary of Labor
Sept. 6, 2000: In a Wall Street Journal editorial titled, “The Case For Progressive Vouchers,” Reich said “Evidence mounts that vouchers do work for kids who use them. The vouchers could be used at any school that meets certain minimum requirements, regardless of whether the school is now dubbed ‘public,’ ‘charter,’ or ‘private.’”
Silver Medal: Bill Clinton
(Mark Shields, February 14, 2000) Common Cause President Wertheimer saves his severest scorn for the alleged hypocrisy of Democrat Bill Clinton, who won election in 1992 as a vocal reformer. Then, with encouragement from House Democrats (who had passed a campaign finance reform bill in the previous Congress only after being repeatedly reassured that President Bush would veto it), President Clinton did not advocate or mention campaign finance during 1993 and 1994, when Democrats controlled the Congress. Wertheimer: "Bill Clinton on campaign finance reform deserves an F.' "
The
'You Don't Need A Weather Man To Know Which Way The Wind Blows' Category
Indeed, before Gore became a U.S. senator in 1985, the
National Right to Life Committee gave him an 84 percent score for voting in line
with its positions.
President Bush #41, Richard Williamson, a former
aide to President Reagan who is opposing Carol Mosely Braun in a much-watched
race for the US Senate in Illinois, is a recent election-year convert. In
Massachusetts, Republican candidates Peter Torkildsen and Dan Daly both switched
to favor abortion rights as they began congressional campaigns. Also, former LA
Mayor Richard Riordan
Gold Medal: President George Bush #41
Silver Metal: Al Gore
The 'I Just Can't help Myself' Category
Gold Medal: Senator Joseph Lieberman
President Bush received a lot of heat politically, both here and abroad, for rejecting the Kyoto Treaty. Bush stated many times that he thought the environmental treaty was seriously flawed and would cripple the US economy. No major European nation has signed on to the treaty and our own United States Senate voted unanimously against it. You would think that Democratic Senators would not go after Bush given that they too rejected the treaty. Wrong. The formerly respected but now power mad Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, said that he feels "a real sense of discomfort and even embarrassment to see the Bush administration has made the United States into a renegade, outsider nation" by rejecting the treaty.
The 'Thanks For The Money You Filthy Pig' Category
Gold Medal: Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman
(Today Show, September 15, 2000) Vice President Al Gore was serenaded by some of the music industry's biggest stars Thursday night at a Democratic fund-raiser in New York that raked in more than $ 6 million, that just one day after Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, sharply criticized Hollywood for marketing violence and sex to children.
The 'If Its Good For The Goose, It's Good For The Goose' Category
Gold Medal: Newt Gingrich
Newt was a constant critic of Bill Clinton throughout his administration. He was such an effective critic that he led the so-called Republican revolution of 1994 when they took over the House for the first time in decades. When the Monica scandal broke,there was Newt correctly pointing out the hypocrisy and shame of Bill Clinton's actions. One small problem, as the impeachment was getting underway, Newt was having an affair with a congressional staffer who is much younger than he. When word of Gingrich's own double standard and breathtaking hypocrisy came out, he was finished. He got what was coming to him. He went from the most powerful man in Washington to irrelevancy in no time flat.
Silver Medal: Bill Clinton & Al Gore
(Linda Chavez, August 29, 2000) Al Gore sent all four of his children to exclusive private schools, including his own alma mater, Washington's elite prep school St. Albans. Bill Clinton sent daughter Chelsea to the tony Sidwell-Friends rather than the local District of Columbia schools. Yet, when Congress tried to enact a modest voucher experiment so that poor Washington kids could attend local private schools, Clinton vetoed the legislation. And Al Gore has made opposition to vouchers a central theme in the education platform of his presidential campaign -- forcing his running mate Joe Lieberman to disavow his own pro-voucher position he's held his entire Senate career.