In Defense of Hypocrites

Hypocrite!

It's the preferred invective that liberals love to throw at conservatives. Seemingly the highest sin in their pantheon is hypocrisy. Let some conservative be found to have transgressed moral standards, as say the Reverend Ted Haggard and Congressman Mark Foley did during the last election cycle, and the liberals commence to howling. Hypocrites!

So, it is some substantial irony that one of their own appears to qualify for the label this week. That being ex-Vice President Al Gore. Within a week of his coronation at the Academy Awards ceremony as the most virtuous exemplar of environmental morality, a man who tireless lectures the rest of us on doing our part to save the planet, an inconvienient fact emerges. Mr. Gore, it turns out, is an energy hog. His mansion in Nashville consumes 20 times the energy that the average household in the area consumes! Oops.

Wait for it a minute.....Hush.....listen closely. Is the usual choir tuning up to shout HYPOCRITE! Uh, no. The libs are trotting out all the spin on why it's really alright that Mr. Gore is sucking up energy at a prodigious rate because he has a bigger house than we do. It's alright because he's a bigger person than we are, so he deserves it. Besides, he's putting up a solar panel or two, so back off.

The real irony is the reports this week that the house that really is "green" to the gills is President Bush's house in Crawford Texas, which uses very little energy on the grid. You'll probably be seeing that reported in the front pages of all of the liberal media sources. Or not. Hypocrites.

Okay, current nominees for hypocrite aside, let me offer a defense of the targets of the charge of hypocrisy.

My take on it has always been this: at least they are trying to hold up a higher standard. To live to any standard at all. It has seemed to me the utmost folly that the user shouters of Hypcrite! are people who assault "standards" wherever they see them - who espouse living any way you want to. I'd rather follow the example of those who held up a standard, even if they fall short of it themselves personally.

Mr. Gore included.

But come on Al, turn off a light bulb already on your way out to the private jet.