Kos Kid: Democrats Can’t Possibly Be Hypocrites
Charles Johnson
Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 2:21 pm PDT • Views: 456
Here’s a Kos Kid explaining that Eliot Spitzer can’t possibly be a hypocrite … because he’s a Democrat, and nobody expects Democrats to have moral standards: Daily Kos: Elliot Spitzer Caught Soliciting Prostitutes.
Did I mention that Spitzer is a Democrat? And a Daily Kos diarist?
Kevin Drums suggests that the usual charges of hypocrisy in prostitution/infidelity scandals come into play here, but I don’t think that accusation is wuite as fair this time. As a prosecutor, it was expected of Spitzer to bust prostitution rings and it’s not as if he (like the Republicans) touts his commitment to sexual morality— over that of his political opponents— in order to get elected. He may be a hypocrite if (as is presumable) he tells his wife he’s faithful to her, and he tells people that they should stay faithful to their spouses, etc. But politically, he’s not a hypocrite, and it doesn’t have it anything to do with his politics the way it does for some others who got caught.
I chalk this event up as an (embarassing) personal failing, but as far as what the typical cheating scandal is like, to me this one is more like personal business and less appropriate as political news or a political criticism of him. You can’t even call it a double-standard for Republicans, because it’s the Republicans who make it an issue for themselves by claiming to have an iron-clad commitment to pbserving these kinds of taboos.
Frank says: