Doing the hypocrisy shuffle
I wish I could say this is a new dance, but the hypocrisy shuffle has been around for a long time. And it's an easy dance to do. Just say one thing in public and then say something very different in private.
The Obama administration's stimulus fund offers a good example of how this works. As Washington Times reporter Jim McElhatton writes:
Sen. Christopher S. Bond regularly railed against President Obama's economic stimulus plan as irresponsible spending that would drive up the national debt. But behind the scenes, the Missouri Republican quietly sought more than $50 million from a federal agency for two projects in his state.
Mr. Bond was not alone. More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to just one of the federal government's many agencies seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects.
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, was quoted in the Times article, and she offered this take:
"It's not illegal to talk out of both sides of your mouth, but it does seem to be a level of dishonesty troubling to the American public."
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