The Hypocrisy Test

Dumbleyou’s gone for the trifecta!

Three days in a row now he’s gotten under my skin so bad, on three different things, that I’ve found the time to sit down and beat up my keyboard. Today, obviously, it’s the stem cell veto. His first veto in five and a half years, and he uses it to fellate the religious right. Then poses with babies after the signing ceremony. … Oh wait, I get it! He’s saving babies! Wow, I almost missed the symbolism…

According to AP, “The [vetoed] measure, which the House of Representatives passed 238-194 in May, allows couples who have had embryos frozen for fertility treatments to donate them to researchers rather than let them be destroyed.”

That’s it. It allows couples to decide what to do with their own frozen embryos. It’s not a descent into Dante’s Inferno, it’s not the first step to hell on earth, and it’s sure not killing babies! It’s about allowing people to make their own family-planning decisions. We criticize China for their one-child policy, then turn around and tell American families what they can and can’t do with their own embryos.

As I said, it’s made me very angry. This administration’s whole anti-science and pro-religion thing makes me angry because most Americans know better. We inherited our religious upbringing and outlook, it’s like eye color. We can wear contacts, but we still have brown eyes. We can stop going to Mass on Sundays, but dammit, we’re still Catholics.

But we understand science with our rational minds. When we think about it, we don’t have to write it off to An Abiding Mystery and then stop thinking about it. Religion maybe saved people thousands of years ago and just last night on the Pat Robertson Show; science saves people every day, everywhere, all over the world, day in and day out. And Americans get that, even ‘Red-Staters.’

I was talking to my friend The Last Boy Scout about how pissed off Bush was making me, and that I have to make sure, from time to time, that I’m not as crazy as he’s making me. Listening to myself talk about Bush, I often marvel at how crazy I sound, and I rely on TLBS to rein me in when necessary…

But when he’s not available, I use what I call The Clinton Test (or the Check-Your-Math Test for Clinton-haters). It works like this:

As I am someone who loved Clinton as President and am therefore biased in his favor, I look at stuff Bush does that pisses me off (name something, anything), and I ask myself, “What if Clinton had done the same thing under the same circumstances?” If the answer comes back, “Well, if Clinton did it, I’d be okay with it,” I have to give Bush a pass.

Obviously, that almost never happens. What if Clinton started a war based on what turned out to be bogus premises? Ooh, I’d be pissed. Scuttling stem-cell research to appease religious crazies? Pissed. Repeatedly caught talking smack on open mics? Embarrassed, but not pissed. Etc.

The same ‘check your math’ test works in reverse, for Bush-backers. What if Clinton had done – let’s use the same examples I’ve just cited, for brevity’s sake – would Bush-backers still be prevaricating and dancing around on the head of a pin looking for the good in it, or would they be outraged?

CLINTON invades Iraq before international weapons inspectors are done with their inspections, there’s no WMDs after all, 2,500-and-counting American servicemembers are killed and the war is about to go longer than WWII with no end in sight — Good or bad?

CLINTON turns his back on the sick and the dying to suck up to campaign contributors — Go along to get along, or forming Congressional committees to look into it? (Hint: Lincoln bedroom.)

CLINTON consistently embarrassing the country by making the same open-mic mistake over and over, always in front of a wall of very visible cameras and microphones — warm folksy whimsy or imbecilic, embarrassing clod?

I suppose the more accurate name for this endeavor would be The Hypocrisy Test.

The only caveat I have to add – and only in the spirit of full disclosure – is that even when Bush does something that passes The Hypocrisy Test, I still don’t trust him. A couple weeks ago, he signed a bill setting aside umpteen thousands of acres of wildlife area from development. I was stunned, till I told myself “I’ll betcha they’re gonna fence it off and use it to test future-weaponry, or secretly inter enemies of the state.”

And I can get away with that kind of paranoia, because of Bush’s track record with secrecy and civil rights violations. And environmental protection! But I still felt myself teetering on the edge of hypocrisy. I’m gonna keep my eye on that story, and if they turn it into a national park with full public access, I’ll write my first pro-Bush blog entry ever. And I’ll catch shit for it, too! My commie-lib pals were not happy with my piece supporting the Supreme Court’s ruling on cops not having to announce themselves before they serve a legally-obtained warrant. And they let me hear about it!

So Bush vetoed the stem-cell research funding today and right now, it looks like the Senate doesn’t have the votes to overturn it, even with a bunch of Republicans and a vast majority of the regrettably non-donating American public on board.

As a result, Bush is not only in our bedrooms, but has crawled up our women’s collective vagina and is doing a head-count on her embryos. This from the GOP, the party of less government and more personal freedom, allegedly.

Maybe the best name for the test would be The Bush Test. It implies hypocrisy without having to spell it out.