Hypocricy

Bitterspice called me this afternoon to tell me about a book about Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and all the other reasons why I don't watch cable news. In this book someone wrote a long essay about Ann Coulter's hypocricy, and it got me thinking about the relative severity of hypocricy as a sin. It seems pretty venial to me. In Ann Coulter's case, I'd take the hypocricy. It's the bigotry, the bile, and the calls for terrorist bombings of major newspapers that I have trouble with.

Ted Bundy's hypocricy (manifested by his work in a rape crisis center) was the least of his faults. The big one had to do with his penchant for capturing women and bashing them over the head. If he'd been just an ordinary, closet misogynist, we'd have just called him a wanker and gone on with our lives. Yes, George W. Bush is a hypocrite, but his worst faults have to do with his serial dishonesty on matters that get people killed or maimed. Bill Clinton's faults look harmless by comparison, so when Ken Starr confronted us with his hypocricy, we called them both wankers (with Starr, deservedly, getting the worst of it for taking up the nation's time with such trivia) and returned to more important things.

We're all hypocritical in at least one area of our lives. And certainly it is silly for someone to think that politicians, who have to go through their lives without doing anything that offends anyone, can survive without a certain measure of hypocricy. It is only when other faults are added that the hypocricy charge starts to sting, but once those faults emerge, hypocricy seems like the least of the person's problems.