Hypocrisy Watch

The Daily News does worry about hypocrisy quite a bit. Larry Magid's editorial on the Schiavo case made hypocrisy his focus. Hypocrisy as thematic material is offered up in twice on Tuesday, page 1, 'Governor accused of fund-raising hypocrisy' and in Nicholas Kristof's column on page 13, 'Hypocrisy costing lives in Zimbabwe'. Having never witnessed death by hypocrisy I would have to defer to Kristof's unique perspective. (Note: The New York Times headlines Kristof's op-ed column differently--'A Morsel of Goat Meat')

As for Governor Schwarzenegger, he was widely quoted as saying that he wouldn't be captive to special interest fundraising and he is getting funds from special interests. That's hypocritical. The governor says he is doing so in order to take his initiatives directly to voters as an end run around the legislators and not to change policy to favor donors. Special interests opposed to Schwarzenegger are free to raise whatever funds they wish--free of hypocrisy.

However, could it be that hypocrisy is merely a useful method when opposing Schwarzenegger's goals. In other words, if the Daily News supported the Governor's objectives would they have any need for the hypocrisy angle? I'm trying to think of a word for that.