Keith Burgess-Jackson:

Hypocrisy, n. 1. The assumption or postulation of moral standards to which one’s own behavior does not conform; dissimulation, pretense. 2. The defining characteristic—and characteristic vice—of leftists.

I'd like to start this off by admitting I'm a hypocrite in some ways. I'm also conflicted, because I find hypocrisy abhorrent, but I'm also strongly in favor of it.

Let me explain...

I'm a hypocrite in that I believe in moral standards to which my own behavior has not conformed. For example, I believe one ought never to be angry with another without cause. Yet I do this at points. I fail to live up to a lot of my ideas, so I am a hypocrite.

Should I then adopt lower ideals? Of course not. If an alcoholic has trouble quitting, should he then decide there is nothing wrong with drinking, in order to avoid being a hypocrite? We'd have to admit there are worse things than hypocrisy.

As Evan Sayet ranted, recently:

By "hypocrite" the Democrat means folks who recognize and espouse higher ideals and then, through human frailty, fall short of perfection. I much prefer this to the Democrat who espouses -- does not believe in -- higher ideals and never seeks them.

Better to seek high ideas and fail than to lose your moral bearing entirely.

The problem only arises when one pretends one does not suffer from the same problem one is condemning in another. I can understand, for example, someone being unhappy with the politics-as-usual approach to campaign fund management that has been imputed to Tom Delay.

But no-one who eagerly supports a Democrat, given that the party does the same things, is in such a position or can take such a stance. In fact, if they're unhappy with what Delay did (though it looks to me like no laws were broken), then they should be equally unhappy that Democrats do it just as frequently.

But that's not the case here.

The kind of hypocrisy I'd admire would be if some politician would stand up and say: "We all have to do this to get into office. I can't claim to be have done this perfectly: we're all guilty and should do something to change it."

Of course, I now think campaign finance laws are wrong-headed, so I'd favor dropping all such laws and disagree with that speaker, but at least they'd be taking a morally and intellectually honest approach to the situation.

But this isn't about principle -- this is about power.