Brian Dickerson: This is no time to cut off the free flow of hypocrisy
Jul 14, 2011 Detroit Free Press
Afew days from now, unless the two major parties transcend their petty differences and adjust the statutory limit on one of our nation's most vital commodities, much of what we Americans take for granted will come to an abrupt halt.
I refer, of course, to the Spending Party and the Complaining Party, and the debate raging between them over whether to raise the federal hypocrisy ceiling, under which members of both parties are authorized to say all sorts of things that everyone privately concedes are nonsensical.
Consider, for example, President Barack Obama.
Obama is currently the leader of the Spending Party. But back in 2006, when he was still a freshman senator in the Complaining Party, he voted against increasing the federal debt ceiling -- a statutory limit closely related to the hypocrisy ceiling -- arguing that to do so would "weaken us domestically and internationally."
It was left to members of the Spending Party, then led by Republicans such as Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, to muster the votes needed to raise the debt ceiling, thus assuring that the foreign countries on whom the U.S. government depends would continue to lend it money.
In fact, Congress voted to raise the federal debt ceiling seven times under George W. Bush, who presided over the Spending Party for eight years until Obama assumed its mantle and Republicans like McConnell switched to the Complaining Party.
Their No. 1 priorities
Today, McConnell and other Republicans can frequently be heard complaining that the federal deficit is the biggest threat to America's economic health. Unless, of course, they are busy arguing that raising taxes on the richest 1% of Americans is the biggest threat, and that they would sooner see the deficit grow by many trillions of dollars than raise the taxes on the wealthiest Americans by a single percentage point.
Take the sort of candor exhibited by the Barack Obama of 2006 and the Mitch McConnell of 2011, then multiply it by the number of elected representatives and party propagandists who have passed through Washington in the intervening five years, and you begin to understand how critical the free flow of hypocrisy is to the continued operation of our American democracy.
There are those who pooh-pooh hypocrisy, of course, even as they continue to spoon heaping helpings of it onto their plates.
The most irresponsible members of the Complaining Party -- which is to say, the ones who have formally declared their candidacy for the presidency -- insist that refusing to raise the federal hypocrisy ceiling is exactly what's needed to bring Washington to its senses. Only by forcing politicians to say what they really mean, they argue, can Washington stop the speak-and-deceive cycle to which the federal government has become accustomed.
Paying for yesterday's lies
But more responsible elements in both parties recognize that even if everyone at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were to stop being hypocritical today, honoring the hypocritical statements and actions of previous congresses and presidents would quickly cause the government to exceed the hypocrisy limits currently in place.
The consequences are terrifying to imagine. Overnight, political discourse in this country would be limited strictly to those assertions a speaker could verify with factual evidence. Congressional hearings would be suspended indefinitely; cable TV news as we know it would cease to exist.
But the fallout would not be contained to the government. Once listeners refused to honor hypocrisy in the public sector, experts who analyze world hypocrisy in the private sector would grow scarcer.
Parents and teachers would lose whatever moral authority they still exercise over children. Spouses would have no choice but to confess when a new article of clothing made their mates look fat, and newspaper columnists ... well, I shudder even to think about the fix they'd be in.
It is appealing, of course, to contemplate a world in which everyone agreed to limit his or her own hypocrisy gradually, at least until we've reached the point where our children could imagine the day when they could afford to be a little hypocritical themselves.
But it is foolish to imagine that this country can go cold turkey on hypocrisy, any more than it could survive a sudden interruption in the flow of foreign oil.
Hypocrisy is the air we breathe, the fuel we run on, the very lifeblood of our democracy. Those who prescribe an abrupt transition to political candor are only asking for trouble.
Contact Brian Dickerson: 313-222-6584 or [email protected]
Jul 14, 2011 Detroit Free Press
Afew days from now, unless the two major parties transcend their petty differences and adjust the statutory limit on one of our nation's most vital commodities, much of what we Americans take for granted will come to an abrupt halt.
I refer, of course, to the Spending Party and the Complaining Party, and the debate raging between them over whether to raise the federal hypocrisy ceiling, under which members of both parties are authorized to say all sorts of things that everyone privately concedes are nonsensical.
Consider, for example, President Barack Obama.
Obama is currently the leader of the Spending Party. But back in 2006, when he was still a freshman senator in the Complaining Party, he voted against increasing the federal debt ceiling -- a statutory limit closely related to the hypocrisy ceiling -- arguing that to do so would "weaken us domestically and internationally."
It was left to members of the Spending Party, then led by Republicans such as Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, to muster the votes needed to raise the debt ceiling, thus assuring that the foreign countries on whom the U.S. government depends would continue to lend it money.
In fact, Congress voted to raise the federal debt ceiling seven times under George W. Bush, who presided over the Spending Party for eight years until Obama assumed its mantle and Republicans like McConnell switched to the Complaining Party.
Their No. 1 priorities
Today, McConnell and other Republicans can frequently be heard complaining that the federal deficit is the biggest threat to America's economic health. Unless, of course, they are busy arguing that raising taxes on the richest 1% of Americans is the biggest threat, and that they would sooner see the deficit grow by many trillions of dollars than raise the taxes on the wealthiest Americans by a single percentage point.
Take the sort of candor exhibited by the Barack Obama of 2006 and the Mitch McConnell of 2011, then multiply it by the number of elected representatives and party propagandists who have passed through Washington in the intervening five years, and you begin to understand how critical the free flow of hypocrisy is to the continued operation of our American democracy.
There are those who pooh-pooh hypocrisy, of course, even as they continue to spoon heaping helpings of it onto their plates.
The most irresponsible members of the Complaining Party -- which is to say, the ones who have formally declared their candidacy for the presidency -- insist that refusing to raise the federal hypocrisy ceiling is exactly what's needed to bring Washington to its senses. Only by forcing politicians to say what they really mean, they argue, can Washington stop the speak-and-deceive cycle to which the federal government has become accustomed.
Paying for yesterday's lies
But more responsible elements in both parties recognize that even if everyone at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were to stop being hypocritical today, honoring the hypocritical statements and actions of previous congresses and presidents would quickly cause the government to exceed the hypocrisy limits currently in place.
The consequences are terrifying to imagine. Overnight, political discourse in this country would be limited strictly to those assertions a speaker could verify with factual evidence. Congressional hearings would be suspended indefinitely; cable TV news as we know it would cease to exist.
But the fallout would not be contained to the government. Once listeners refused to honor hypocrisy in the public sector, experts who analyze world hypocrisy in the private sector would grow scarcer.
Parents and teachers would lose whatever moral authority they still exercise over children. Spouses would have no choice but to confess when a new article of clothing made their mates look fat, and newspaper columnists ... well, I shudder even to think about the fix they'd be in.
It is appealing, of course, to contemplate a world in which everyone agreed to limit his or her own hypocrisy gradually, at least until we've reached the point where our children could imagine the day when they could afford to be a little hypocritical themselves.
But it is foolish to imagine that this country can go cold turkey on hypocrisy, any more than it could survive a sudden interruption in the flow of foreign oil.
Hypocrisy is the air we breathe, the fuel we run on, the very lifeblood of our democracy. Those who prescribe an abrupt transition to political candor are only asking for trouble.
Contact Brian Dickerson: 313-222-6584 or [email protected]
