Op-Ed Columnist - Genius in the Bottle - NYTimes.com
Maureen makes it clear, the problem is "sanctimony and Republicans", certainly not bad behavior.
So why is it that Palin is hypocrite? Daughter getting pregnant? I really don't know, but actually, I agree, she IS a hypocrite and Maureen is not. Maureen has successfully subscribed to that difficult position of absolute amorality -- there is nothing she could do that would show she has somehow acted against her principles, since she has none! It is a solution that certainly "works", yet I fail to see that it is the superior one.
The alternative is as Maureen points out -- to have morals, standards and principles and to almost certainly fall short of them -- sometimes horribly and publicly, sometimes in small and private ways. All those with standards bear that burden of hypocrasy, and usually not all that lightly.
I see the benefit of Maureens position relative to ease, but somehow it seems that it has it's own price. Sure, there is the enjoyment of bashing those with standards when they fail, but where is the joy in your own libertine existance? Is it only that vicarious pleasure in pointing the failings of others relative to their standards? or do you take joy at pushing some new boundary in your own unfettered world? Is it even "cheating" when one has no morals at all? Does breaking some old tired standard held by prudish (and almost certainly hypocritical) others gain the standard of "virtue"?
I'm sure I lack the sophistication that it takes to even understand that liberal thought nirvana where no standards reign and those that hold any are cretins whose failings are to be gloated over with a sort of joy in the misfortune of others that is in itself enough to give human nature a bad name to those of us too small minded to leave all thought of morals behind.
Maureen makes it clear, the problem is "sanctimony and Republicans", certainly not bad behavior.
The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.
So why is it that Palin is hypocrite? Daughter getting pregnant? I really don't know, but actually, I agree, she IS a hypocrite and Maureen is not. Maureen has successfully subscribed to that difficult position of absolute amorality -- there is nothing she could do that would show she has somehow acted against her principles, since she has none! It is a solution that certainly "works", yet I fail to see that it is the superior one.
The alternative is as Maureen points out -- to have morals, standards and principles and to almost certainly fall short of them -- sometimes horribly and publicly, sometimes in small and private ways. All those with standards bear that burden of hypocrasy, and usually not all that lightly.
I see the benefit of Maureens position relative to ease, but somehow it seems that it has it's own price. Sure, there is the enjoyment of bashing those with standards when they fail, but where is the joy in your own libertine existance? Is it only that vicarious pleasure in pointing the failings of others relative to their standards? or do you take joy at pushing some new boundary in your own unfettered world? Is it even "cheating" when one has no morals at all? Does breaking some old tired standard held by prudish (and almost certainly hypocritical) others gain the standard of "virtue"?
I'm sure I lack the sophistication that it takes to even understand that liberal thought nirvana where no standards reign and those that hold any are cretins whose failings are to be gloated over with a sort of joy in the misfortune of others that is in itself enough to give human nature a bad name to those of us too small minded to leave all thought of morals behind.
