Election 2008: Choose Your Hypocrite

In American two-party politics there are two fixed realities: that the Republicans, the party of traditional values, are hypocrites about sex, and that the Democrats, the party of populist economics, are hypocrites about money.*

We need only refer to the two most current political scandals for illustration.

On the right, we have Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, who plead guilty to a minor misdemeanor charge related to soliciting sex in an airport men's room but who, now that the whole matter has come to the attention of the press, insists that it was just a big misunderstanding. Right, Senator Craig: everybody knows what it's like to wave at someone underneath a toilet partition and have that gesture misunderstood.

On the left, we have Senator Hillary Clinton of New York (by way of Illinois, Arkansas and DC, of course), who has decided she won't return donations which, if they aren't the consequence of money laundering for people with connections to the People's Republic of China, must be the result of an economic and political miracle. Right, Senator Clinton: everybody knows what it's like to receive thousands of dollars in political donations from a working class family with no discernible interest in politics and a close connection to a shady businessman with ties to foreign governments.

If we go back a few weeks, we have on the right Senator David Vitter, patron of "escort services," and on the left former Senator John Edwards, toniest of limousine liberals.

Of all these, Vitter is the only one publicly to own up to his inconsistencies. For that we commend him and wish him the very best.

But what do we learn from this? To summarize in a SWNIDish apophthegm:All politicians are dogs, but Republicans are our dogs.

Voters who seek the most honest, virtuous politicians will be forever disappointed. We do indeed favor political judgments that are in limited measure influenced by one's best estimate of relative virtue, but such judgments will be always imperfect, often of minor consequence, and frequently headed toward disappointment. Humans tend to be fairly evil, and the lust for political power doesn't balance that tendency much. So we say that guessing which pol lives most consistently with his principles is not the best first means to decide how to vote.

But there remains the matter of political philosophy. That's where we see the difference between parties. Neither party may live according to its principles, but one has principles that, if enacted as policy, stand a better chance of benefiting the body politic. Because socialism impoverishes people and pacifism kills them, that party at present is the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Dubya.

Good dog, GOP!

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*It is a tribute to Bill Clinton's ability to triangulate that he managed to be a hypocrite on both.