Someone posted a video on YouTube that I have now seen a few times but it continues to carry a strong message. It shows vignettes of Fox News commentators commenting on the same exact situation: the President’s willingness to meet with the thuggish dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. In the first series (filmed while Barack Obama was in office), their outrage that a sitting President would be willing to even THINK about meeting with Kim knows no bounds. “President Obama is willing to meet with a DICTATOR!!” Horrors!! It simply cannot be countenanced!! In the second set, filmed more recently during the run-up to Trump’s trip to Singapore, they are practically slobbering over themselves in praise of Trump doing exactly the same.
If we hadn’t become so used to it, the hypocrisy would be staggering.
The image of Trump returning the salute of one of Kim’s generals is another example. I read up a bit on military protocol (I don’t pretend to have any expertise), and while it’s not unheard of for a President to salute a senior officer from another country, it is also generally not done; the more appropriate response is a smile and handshake. But when it is done, it is done as a show of respect and almost without exception, the officers are members of an ally. To salute an enemy officer is simply not done.
My point is not whether or not Trump had the right to do so, or if it was a breach of protocol, but to contrast the reaction that Obama would have gotten had he done the same. Hannity and the other talking heads at Fox would have come completely unglued. Remember the reaction Obama got for bowing to the Japanese Emperor by Fox? “Kowtowing to a foreign leader” was how it was described, when in reality bowing slightly is a traditional show of respect, not subservience.
Probably the richest example comes from Sessions, quoting scripture in defense of separating families at the border. The scripture he used was Romans 13, which states (I’m paraphrasing) that since governments are put in place by God that we have a moral obligation placed upon us by God to obey their laws. The irony in his use of this scripture is that there have been two major times in US history when people invoked that scripture. One was during the Revolutionary War when it was used by Loyalists to attempt to show that the British government was there by God’s will and it would be going against God’s will to support the revolution; the other time was prior to the Civil War, when it was used to support slavery. Neither time a particularly honorable or even appropriate use of Scripture. Again, Sessions’ use of the Bible to support his deplorable practice is not the point here; instead I’m waiting for the outrage of right-wing Republican Christians. So far, crickets. To be fair, a number of Christian organizations (the Catholic Jesuits, Mormons, Episcopalians and a few others) have spoken out against his hypocrisy, but the Huckabees and Falwells of the world have been noticeably silent.
I would guess that there could be found examples of not practicing what is preached among the Liberal world, but the fringes of the Republican party (who seem to have taken over the entire Republican agenda) wrap themselves in piety and patriotism to support their actions, when an objective evaluation of both the Bible and the Constitution would lead a reasonable person to the opposite position.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
Hypocrisy is becoming the norm
Someone posted a video on YouTube that I have now seen a few times but it continues to carry a strong message. It shows vignettes of Fox News commentators commenting on the same exact situation: the President’s willingness to meet with the thuggish dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. In the first series (filmed while Barack Obama was in office), their outrage that a sitting President would be willing to even THINK about meeting with Kim knows no bounds. “President Obama is willing to meet with a DICTATOR!!” Horrors!! It simply cannot be countenanced!! In the second set, filmed more recently during the run-up to Trump’s trip to Singapore, they are practically slobbering over themselves in praise of Trump doing exactly the same.
If we hadn’t become so used to it, the hypocrisy would be staggering.
The image of Trump returning the salute of one of Kim’s generals is another example. I read up a bit on military protocol (I don’t pretend to have any expertise), and while it’s not unheard of for a President to salute a senior officer from another country, it is also generally not done; the more appropriate response is a smile and handshake. But when it is done, it is done as a show of respect and almost without exception, the officers are members of an ally. To salute an enemy officer is simply not done.
My point is not whether or not Trump had the right to do so, or if it was a breach of protocol, but to contrast the reaction that Obama would have gotten had he done the same. Hannity and the other talking heads at Fox would have come completely unglued. Remember the reaction Obama got for bowing to the Japanese Emperor by Fox? “Kowtowing to a foreign leader” was how it was described, when in reality bowing slightly is a traditional show of respect, not subservience.
Probably the richest example comes from Sessions, quoting scripture in defense of separating families at the border. The scripture he used was Romans 13, which states (I’m paraphrasing) that since governments are put in place by God that we have a moral obligation placed upon us by God to obey their laws. The irony in his use of this scripture is that there have been two major times in US history when people invoked that scripture. One was during the Revolutionary War when it was used by Loyalists to attempt to show that the British government was there by God’s will and it would be going against God’s will to support the revolution; the other time was prior to the Civil War, when it was used to support slavery. Neither time a particularly honorable or even appropriate use of Scripture. Again, Sessions’ use of the Bible to support his deplorable practice is not the point here; instead I’m waiting for the outrage of right-wing Republican Christians. So far, crickets. To be fair, a number of Christian organizations (the Catholic Jesuits, Mormons, Episcopalians and a few others) have spoken out against his hypocrisy, but the Huckabees and Falwells of the world have been noticeably silent.
I would guess that there could be found examples of not practicing what is preached among the Liberal world, but the fringes of the Republican party (who seem to have taken over the entire Republican agenda) wrap themselves in piety and patriotism to support their actions, when an objective evaluation of both the Bible and the Constitution would lead a reasonable person to the opposite position.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.