United States of Hypocrisy

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that to be his duty
--George Bernard Shaw

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity
--Andre Gide

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy
--Benjamin Disraeli

There is no trait less savory than self-righteous hypocrisy, and living in these United States entitles me to a daily heapin' helpin' of the stuff.

Americans seem less burdened by the otherwise inconvenient incongruities of their behavior, than that they should be brought to the light of day. This attitude is embodied by the individual who flaunts donation to a fraternal or church organization, yet is unkind to his own mate. If the spirit of generosity cannot be maintained across the board, it is shallow tokenism.

Radio program host Don Imus is not the stuff of big politics; CIA operative Carlos Posada is. But both of their situations signify the endemic problem of hypocrisy. And neither Imus nor Posada is the hypocrite.

Imus's corporate sponsors cut him after he made a racial slur on the air. In an effort to retain his post, he is running hither and thither doing damage control, and state governors get in car wrecks on their way to mediate these kowtowings. It all demonstrates that what is actually shocking is not that anyone would ever think such a thing, but that he said it.

Harvey Fierstein--gay, avoirdupois playwright--penned a nice essay in today's New York Times ("Our Prejudices, Ourselves'') in which he calls this hypocrisy for what it is. ''Face it, if a Pentagon general, his salary paid with my tax dollars, can label homosexual acts as 'immoral' without a call for his dismissal, who are the moral high and mighty kidding?''

''Our nation, historically bursting with generosity toward strangers, remains remarkably unkind toward its own. Just under our gleaming patina of inclusiveness, we harbor corroding guts. America, I tell you that it doesn’t matter how many times you brush your teeth. If your insides are rotting your breath will stink. So, how do you people choose which hate to embrace, which to forgive with a wink and a week in rehab, and which to protest? Where’s my copy of that rule book?''

The Orlando Sentinel's Kathleen Parker points out the hypocrisy from amongst some of those calling for Imus's head, among them, the ever-racist Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (Don Imus's Via Dolorosa.)

Her plea is, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Clean things up, but don't act appalled that's there's a wailing young un' obscured in the swill (Golly gee). Not that Imus is an infant, but in his belief that he could mock the entrenched racism embedded in America, he was. So we all act like fools, shocked we are, that someone could...think such a thing? I don't think so.

As in the personal, so the political.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal (4/12/07) offered this tempting blurb: ''Cuban protesters greeted a U.S. judge's order to free on bail an anti-Castro militant behind a 1976 Cuban airline bombing that killed 73.'' That ''militant'' is CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, who is being detained ''before his trial on fraud charges in federal court in Texas.'' Lawyers in the Department of Justice's [that's becoming a misnomer] counterterrorism division pressed the judge to delay her bond decision.

The letters which followed the Miami Herald's coverage of the piece provide for some interesting commentary. I'll include a few below:

[1] ''Posada ought to stop being so considerate, honorable and loyal and start spilling the beans on all the secrets he's privy to about this country and the Bush family. The U.S. government has no friends because it uses people, like it used Posada, and then discards them like expendable material.''

[2] ''U.S. attorneys [want] to extradite Louis Posada to Cuba, to be mutilated by Castro, or to Venezuela to be tortured by his pimp Chavez [yet they] have released five time convicted Arab scum Sakis Soghanalian, who has armed Saddam Hussein with 2.5 billion in French artillery shells...

The butcher of Bagdad Soghanalian who armed Saddam Hussein...whose weapons kill and maim us personnel in I E D S every day in Anbar provence...and [he and] u.s .attorney's eat every day at Joe's stone crabs paid for by Hussein...''

[3] A certain ''Don Imus'' posts: ''He is a terrorist and this government is protecting him, This is the Hypocrisy of this Administration. Send him to Guantanamo and torture him until he confesses.''

by Lisa