Political Hypocrisy: Charges from Left and Right

Via Sykes Writes, the “Name the Liberal Hypocrite” Quiz.

Some examples:

1. Which liberal says that labor unions are essential for worker rights and accepted the Cesar Chavez Award for their contributions to the labor movement, but uses non-union labor in the hotels, restaurants, and Napa Valley Vineyard that they own?
   
   1. Susan Sarandon
   2. Paul Newman
   3. Nancy Pelosi
   
   
2. Who says that Americans who live in white neighborhoods are racist, but lives in a town with no blacks?
   
   1. Al Gore
   2. Rosie O’Donnell
   3. Michael Moore
   
   

See the article for the answers, and several more examples.

Of course, liberals can produce lists of “family values” conservatives who have had tawdry adulterous affairs, so don’t use this on your more reasonable liberal friends. Do use it on your more obnoxious ones.

The “Chickenhawk” Liberal Charge

One of the sillier liberal charges, however, is the claim that people who support the Iraq War and didn’t serve in the military are “chickenhawks.”

The GOP3.COM blog has a particularly good debunking of this nonsense.

Daniel Suhr notes that liberals who use this slur fail to mention:

. . . a list of all the current Democratic U.S. Senators who voted for the Iraq War but have no military experience: Baucus, Bayh, Biden, Cantwell, Carper, Clinton, Dorgan, Feinstein, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson of NE, Reid, Rockefeller, and Schumer. Does [liberal Bill Christofferson] think that Harry Reid, his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate, is a chickenhawk? Or should Jay Rockefeller, ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, not be allowed to speak out on military matters?

Of course, there are plenty of other problems with this argument. As Suhr points out, it’s ad hominem, and actually involves a refusal to discuss the war itself.

And as we pointed out in a post back in the spring, we have only about 150,000 troops in Iraq, and probably twice or three times this number who have rotated through that theater. What if all Americans who supported the war were required to enlist and go fight? Do we really want tens of millions of troops in that nation?

Further, if somebody who favors the war is required to enlist (or have fought on the front lines in a previous war) are white liberals who favor affirmative action each required to give up their job so a black can have it?

The liberals are using a silly argument here, and need to be shamed until they drop it.