Hypocrisy and Politics Have Much in Common

It's not uncommon for a person to espouse a certain view while taking a decidedly different tack when conducting his own affairs. (Affairs? We'll get back to that in a minute.) A lawmaker might occasionally abuse the trust placed in him by his constituents, or someone might call for everyone else to tighten their belts while he lives high on the hog.

This is shocking, I know. But it's true.

Al Gore went off on an angry rant last summer over people who doubt that humans cause global warming. This was at an Aspen Institute panel on networks and citizenship, whatever that is. I'm sure it was important that he attend. I just hope he walked there so as to minimize his carbon footprint.

Back in 2007, John Tierney asked in The New York Times whether Gore should have accepted the Nobel Peace Prize (awarded to him and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) by teleconference instead of flying to Norway to receive it in person. In his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, Gore advocated less air travel, noting that saving even one plane trip a year made a difference.

He took the plane.

In March 2010, “Nashville Real Estate” compared two residences of well-known Americans. Al Gore's 10,000-square-foot shack in Nashville was said to burn through 20 times as much natural gas as the average American home. Meanwhile, near Crawford, Tex., George W. Bush occupied a 4,000-square foot home fitted with the latest environmentally-friendly features.

Snopes.com reported in Sept. 2009 that the Gores had renovated their home for energy efficiency. Regarding the home's size, a spokesperson explained that both Al and wife Tipper worked out of their home. I work out of my home, too. I use the spare bedroom for my office, and I am my spokesperson.

The Gores purchased an ocean-view residence in California in April 2010. This place sits on 1.5 acres and has six fireplaces, presumably emitting no carbon dioxide. I was going to augment my own real-estate holdings last year, but the condo board put the kibosh on my plans to erect a tool shed out back.

More than 800 IP addresses assigned to the U.S. House of Representatives were involved in illegal downloading, according to Cory Doctorow on the “Boing Boing” website. (An IP address uniquely identifies a computer or other device that is connected to the internet.) So, it's likely that people working in the House have illegally downloaded content over the internet. Meanwhile, Congress considers how to deal with illegal downloading by the rest of us.

The lawmakers themselves may be innocent. Staffers might be responsible for all of this activity. We all recognize the superior moral character of our legislators. Besides, for them to be downloading material would imply that at least one congressman knows how.

Newt Gingrich, who is a serious presidential candidate for a week or two every now and then, pushed for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 for alleged perjury regarding some Oval Office shenanigans with a young intern, Monica Lewinsky. The charges related to whether Clinton had lied to a grand jury by denying that he had had sexual relations with Lewinsky.

Gingrich was conducting his own extramarital affair at the time. But that's okay, he explains on his website, because Clinton's alleged perjury was a felony, while Newt was just fooling around on the side. He prefers to call it “past failings”.

It turns out that Gingrich's checkered marital history helped him understand why Clinton should have been impeached. The candidate explained to Chris Wallace of Fox News that having been in depositions in divorce cases led him to understand that it's a felony to perjure oneself in front of a federal judge. Well, in that case, it's okay.

Gingrich recently said that if elected, he would consider Sarah Palin for a cabinet post. Maybe she can take the State Department. I believe there are several countries that the U.S. has not yet alienated.

Finally—for today, at least—we have the radical-chic folks who want to Occupy everything. They are against evil corporations and the obscene profits they make from providing useful products that people want.

Filmmaker Michael Moore has been hanging around with the Occupiers. Moore, of course, takes issue with various aspects of capitalism, although he seems to embrace its core concept—making money, and lots of it—judging from his website, whence you can buy his movies, add them to your lists on Netflix and Blockbuster, and become a fan on Facebook. Down with corporate greed!

Michael Moore famously showed up at various Occupy camps, claiming he is one of the 99 percent of the population that gets the short end of the economic stick. “Celebrity Networth” pegs Moore's net worth at $50 million. I did some extrapolation, and I figure I'll reach $50 million in the year 2496, at which time my fortune will buy me approximately three loaves of bread, two cans of Steel Reserve and a used copy of “Roger and Me”.

On CNN, Piers Morgan suggested to Moore that he was in the one percent, noted Peter Wehner in Commentary. Moore denied it.

Newt Gingrich said in early February 2012 that Mitt Romney, with whom he was contesting the Republican presidential nomination, “doesn't understand the free market,” according to the CNN Politics blog.

Gingrich told a group in Las Vegas that the two big government mortgage companies are more interested in profits than helping Americans refinance their home loans, saying, “We did not create Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so rich guys like Mitt Romney and Goldman Sachs can make money.”

Mitt Romney earned his fortune as one of the founders of Bain Capital, a financial firm that was formed in 1984 and helped launch many large companies, including Staples. He turned the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City into a profitable venture.

In 2006, before turning into a populist, Gingrich scored a $1.6 million gig as a historian for Freddie Mac, whose meltdown the following year helped launch the financial crisis.

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