I think my hypocrisy meter just got burned out!

[tigertoy]

President Bush criticized Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards in his own home state on Wednesday by questioning whether Edwards has sufficient experience to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Full story on Yahoo

That's right, the guy who ran for President as a first-term governor who probably couldn't have found Washington on a map criticizes Edwards for his lack of experience.

Are Bush supporters really so dense that they don't notice these double standards, or are they so self-righteous that they don't see a problem with the "standards are for judging other people, you know I'm perfect" message?

Comments

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

The latter of your two hypotheses is correct, I believe.

To Bush supporters, the fact that Bush may be wrong or that he's incompetent is — as the the character Vizzini in The Princess Bride would say — in-con-ceeev-able!

[billroper]

First, there's some possibility (yes, I know you'd consider it slim) that the younger Bush absorbed some information from the older during the process of growing up. But let's discount that.

Second, there appears to be a considerable difference between legislative experience and executive experience in understanding how to operate in the Federal executive branch. Counting backwards, I believe our last elected (got to skip Gerald Ford) President who had not served as either a governor or Vice-President was JFK.

And, of course, when Bush was campaigning in 2000, the Democrats did make a great deal of noise about his lack of experience. They weren't unjustified in doing so, in my opinion.

However, Edwards may have even less relevant experience than Bush did at the time.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that being a Senator was better preparation for being President than being a governor.

Edwards may have less relevant experience that Bush, depending on your definition of relevant experience, but he's only running for VP. A reasonable person would demand less, because it's very unlikely that the VP has to step into the top job before he gets some on-the-job training. But my point was not to say that there's no argument that Edwards has less experience than would be ideal. My point is that for that criticism to come from Bush, who ran, not for VP, but for President, on very short experience is blatant, in-your-face hypocrisy, and it offends me.

[billroper]

I find it difficult to get worked up about "hypocrisy" in the statements of public officials. You might, for example, check out the records of the people in Congress who have voted for and against school vouchers and find out how many of them are sending their children to private schools.

"What's good for you isn't necessarily good for me," is SOP in politics.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

You might, for example, check out the records of the people in Congress who have voted for and against school vouchers and find out how many of them are sending their children to private schools.

Voting against vouchers while sending your own children to private school is not necessarily hypocritical. Taking the political position that private schools are evil and should be shut down entirely while sending your own kids to them would be hypocritical. Saying that the government shouldn't take money from public schools to pay for private schools doesn't conflict with choosing to spend your own money to send your own kids there.