Jewish World Review Nov. 14, 2005 / 12 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766

Hypocrisy gets a bad rap

By Tucker Carlson

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When you're under 30, you think there's nothing worse than a hypocrite. When you get older, you realize you are one. How could you not be? All of us fall short of our expectations of ourselves and of other people. All of us do things we know we shouldn't. If you're living up to your own ideals, you've got low standards.

So, yes, we're all hypocrites. But some of us are bigger hypocrites than others. Some of us are such profound hypocrites, in fact, that other people write nasty books about us pointing out that fact. Peter Schweizer has written such a book, called "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy". It's compelling reading.

Here's how Barbara Streisand thinks the rest of us should live, as she explained in the pages of Tikkun magazine: "We can continue to thrive on this earth, but in order to do so, we must adapt to a more sustainable way of life. While there is still some time to alter our way of living, we must begin now to behave respectfully and honor these sacred gifts — our rolling hills and mountains, the depths of our blue oceans and rivers, the richness of our forest and plants and the vastness of our land."

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According to Schweizer, here's how Barbra Streisand lives: Her annual water bill is $22,000, most of it for watering her lawn.

Then there's Michael Moore. Moore has made a living by cataloging the various sins of American life, while simultaneously trumpeting his own exquisite moral goodness. Moore may be heavy-set and sloppy, but he's decent. That's the message. Nothing bothers Michael Moore more than racism. In his book Stupid White Men, Moore announced his desire to "hire only black people" from here on out.

He didn't live up to the pledge, to put it mildly. As Schweizer demonstrates, Moore has hired essentially no black people at all. In three of Moore's projects that he looked into (Fahrenheit 911, Bowling for Columbine and the show TV Nation), Schweizer could find only a single non-white person on staff.

But my favorite example of hypocrisy in the book involves Halliburton. You remember Halliburton, the evil oil-services and defense contractor that, with the help of Dick Cheney and the Trilateral Commission, is subverting democracy and oppressing poor people around the world. No one hates Halliburton more than Michael Moore. Every time an American dies in Iraq, he has said, "I would like Halliburton to slay one mid-level executive."

Well, guess what? Michael Moore has been a Halliburton investor. According to IRS records Schweizer found, Moore made 15 percent off of his Halliburton shares.

In other words, Michael Moore has profited from the very evil he decries. Come to think of it, let me revise my first sentence. Yes, hypocrisy is universal and understandable. But there's a limit.