Right Wing Hypocrisy Alert

Even though this is old news in this era of non-stop 24/7/365 news, I figured I'd fill you in on a recent burst of right-wing hypocrisy. The concerned paternalists at One News Now were offended earlier this week when Vice President Biden told President Obama that passage of the health care reform bill was "a big fucking deal." They were even more offended when President Obama later joked about his veep's slip of the tongue. In fact, the puritans at One News Now were so offended and concerned that they posted a poll to find out if their readers share their offense and concern (and to alert them that, if they don't share said concern and offense, they should):

Talk about a skewed poll. There's no option for people to indicate that they could care less that the Vice President let a four-letter word slide over his tongue and past his lips before he could think about what he was saying. Given the monumental issues government leaders are dealing with these days, I'm not going to waste my time monitoring their casual speech. And, frankly, I don't want them to waste their time doing so either. My time, and theirs, is better spent monitoring and analyzing their speech that actually affects people.

By now, you may be asking why I've labeled One News Now's story and poll as hypocritical. The answer is simple: during George W. Bush's eight-year term of ineptitude, no one at One News Now or the American Family News Network ever chastised either the president or his vice president for their frequent, and well-publicized, profane speech. When the Oval Office was occupied by leaders whom the American Family News Network supported, cussing didn't matter one whit. Even worse, neither One News Now nor the American Family News Network protested when Bush and Cheney went beyond merely uttering four-letter words and committed the far more profane acts of lying to justify an invasive war, justifying torture, politicizing the Justice Department and eroding the civil rights of American citizens. Now that the Oval Office is occupied by a president whom many in the right-wing criticize harshly and relentlessly, purity of speech is suddenly a pressing matter. In fact, in the warped world of One News Now, the American Family News Network and many other right-wingers, the passage of the health care reform bill - a bill that begins the process of extending health care to more people and curbing the most egregious excesses of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries - was an unspeakably profane act. I long ago stopped giving credence to most of the words spoken or printed by most right-wing Americans. Too many of them live in a world where up is down, in is out, violence is peace and wrong is right. Paying attention to them is too much like falling down Alice's rabbit hole for my comfort.