Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Whiffs of Hypocrisy
... from different corners.
Here, you have a protest at BC about honoring the US Secretary of State. Dr Rice seems a potential target for pro-life activists, too, but I haven't heard anything from that quarter. I suppose being mildly pro-choice and Republican (like the president) gets you a pass. Paul McNellis, SJ, from the Philosophy Department:
I wish her position were more pro-life. But she is not the surgeon general or the secretary of health and human services. She is not engaged, so far as I know, in abortion policy.
Does that pass muster morally for the Disinvite Crowd? Can a politician have a pro-choice record, but be uninvolved in "abortion policy?"
And in this corner, John Tierney of the NYT takes a big fat shot at Rush Limbaugh's ideology of convenience:
Now that Rush Limbaugh has managed to keep himself out of prison, the punishment he once advocated for drug abusers, let me suggest a new cause for him: speaking out for people who can handle their OxyContin.
Like Limbaugh, Richard Paey suffers severe back pain. Also like Limbaugh, he was accused of illegally obtaining large quantities of painkillers. Florida authorities zealously pursued them for years.
Unlike Limbaugh, Paey went to prison. He’s serving the third year of a 25-year term. His wife told me that when he heard how Limbaugh settled his case last week — by agreeing to pay $30,000 and submit to drug tests — Paey offered a simple explanation: “The wealthy and influential go to rehab, while the poor and powerless go to prison.”
Go read the opinion piece. It has been said that a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. I wouldn’t wish such a conversion on Limbaugh. But a two-year investigation by drug prosecutors should be enough to turn a conservative into a libertarian.
