Over the past few weeks I have focused on the hypocrisy of President Obama and the rest of the political class in Washington DC. After reading the responses I have come to an interesting conclusion. There is just as much hypocrisy among his breathless devotees. Before I begin to detail the duplicity of those experiencing chills running up their legs, allow me to explain that not all of those who support the President’s socialistic agenda are hypocrites. There are some that support Obama and his misguided policies because they truly believe that socialism, for the first time in human history, will actually work. There are others, those of which I am referring to as hypocrites, which were vehemently opposed to various policies under the Bush administration, but are jumping to their feet to applaud the very same policies under an Obama administration.

During the summer of 2007, President Bush and members of both political parties were pushing for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” that would grant amnesty to more than 12 million illegal aliens. The public outcry against the ill-conceived legislation was swift and fierce. Congress quickly folded under the public pressure and defeated the measure. The opposition to the amnesty bill was made up of conservatives, liberals, and moderates. Last week President Obama spoke of the need for immigration reform that would again grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. Yet the silence from the Kool Aid drinking followers of the President was deafening. Why would someone oppose amnesty when proposed by Bush but yet support it when proposed by Obama? 

During the 8 years of the Bush presidency, the screams against deficit spending came again from both conservatives and liberals alike. Conservatives railed against foolish legislation that added to the deficit spending. We opposed the expensive Medicare Prescription Drug plan because of the outrageous cost of the measure. We opposed the reluctance of Bush to veto any spending measure sent to his desk from Congress. Now that President Obama is in office, the some of the same people screaming at Bush’s deficit spending are strangely silent about President Obama’s budget plans that will increase the federal deficit by 4 times to $9.3 trillion. Why is it evil when Bush spends more than the government collects in tax revenue, but it is perfectly fine when Obama quadruples the deficit spending in his first 8 weeks in office?

When the news reports came out about the problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the outrage at Bush was immense. The anger was aimed at Bush because of the treatment of our country’s bravest men and women. President Obama even campaigned on better treatment for our veterans. Unfortunately this was yet another campaign pledge that was nothing more than empty campaign rhetoric. Last week the leaders of the American Legion reported on the President’s proposal to force the private insurance companies of combat injured veterans to pay for the medical costs associated with treating their combat related injuries. Again there was no cry from the swaying masses of the Obama acolytes. Why would they not care about the treatment of veterans by the Obama administration?

The answer to the above questions is obvious to anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty, hypocrisy. If you have the courage of your convictions, it will not matter who is proposing a policy. If the policy is at odds with your core beliefs then you will oppose it regardless of which political party is proposing it. I have been accused of being blinded by my partisanship, but if you read anything I wrote over the last year it would become obvious that my conservatism has remained steady. If a Republican, such as Bush, proposed something with which I disagreed, I voiced my opposition. On the same token, when Obama has said or done something with which I have agreed, I voiced my support. The only question that I have for those incapable of being honest with themselves is what flavor is the Obama Kool Aid?

In September of 2008, the Federal government orchestrated an $85 billion bailout of the insurance company American International Group, better known as AIG. The move was part of an effort to shore up the faltering financial sector. At the time, conservatives blasted the bailout as an expensive, foolish, and meddling experiment to “fix” the economy. Now that 6 months have passed since the initial round of bailouts, we can plainly see the folly of such an experiment. To make matters worse, AIG has just paid out millions in bonuses to many of their executives. This obviously touched off a flurry of hearings and press conferences in Washington D.C. to enable the politicians to feign their moral outrage over the payment of bonuses.

The news out of DC this week has been a constant drumbeat of anger, and calls for the names of the executives to be made public. The House has even voted to tax the bonuses at an outrageous rate of 90%. As a side note, does anyone honestly believe that Congress will stop at the selective bonuses of these executives? When does Congress ever abolish a tax? They more often than not simply expand the tax to include more taxpayers. When Congressman Barney Frank pompously pontificated about his desire to make the names of those receiving bonuses public, AIG CEO Ed Liddy responded by cautioning Frank about the danger of publicizing the names. He then read a couple of recorded death threats aimed at the executives of AIG, to which the “omniscient” Frank replied that he would take it under advisement. Sadly, for Frank and many other politicians, the visions of headlines cloud the very real possibility of bodily injury to the executives.

The hypocrisy of the politicians reigns supreme in Washington. Last month, the “stimulus” bill was pushed through Congress without any chance for real debate. It was rushed through so hurriedly, that the majority of Congress did not even have the chance to read it. Maybe if they had read the bill, they would have noticed a small addition to the bill that stated that any contractual bonuses that were promised before February 11 of this year, would be allowed to be paid out. Who added this tiny amendment to the bill? Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut was the author of the amendment. Please allow another side not here as well. The 2 top recipients of campaign donations from AIG last year were Senator Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama. Dodd admitted that he had added the amendment to the bill, but that an administration official had applied pressure to ensure that it did get added to the final version of the bill. So Congress passes a bill that specifically allows these bonuses to be paid, and then when it becomes public knowledge that the bonuses are being paid, the same congressman arrogantly declare their moral outrage.

The White House was questioned about how could they allow these bonuses to be paid out. Their response was that the Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, had only learned of the bonuses last week and was working to prevent them from being paid. The truth is that Geithner had known for at least 2 weeks, and AIG had been working with Federal officials for at least the past 3 months on these very same bonuses. Either the Federal government does not pass along information to the Treasury Secretary, or they knew about it and waited for it become public knowledge to milk every last ounce of political capital out of the outrage that they created.