Assassin for Thee; Not for Me

One of the more sadly comical attributes of conservatives is their ability to denounce someone for engaging in the same behavior they're using when they denounce the person. Some people call it hypocrisy, while I call it...well, I call it hypocrisy too, because that's what it is. But as I've said before, hypocrisy isn't a separate flaw in conservatives. It's a prerequisite.

In this case, I'm referring to Giuliani's attack on Hillary Clinton for her "character assassination" of General Petraeus. Hillary doubted Petraeus' truthfulness so Rudy decided to not only label her a "character assassin" but to also imply some sort of weird conspiracy with MoveOn.org and the NY Times. You know, because MoveOn had an ad in the NY Times doubting the honesty of Petraeus' testimony and it just so happened that around the same time Petraeus gave that testimony, Hillary also doubted it. What are the odds of that happening? As Rudy said, Hillary's comments followed MoveOn's "in a very, very coincidental way."

Yes, it's quite amazing to see two things you expect to happen at the same time actually happen at the same time. Coincidental isn't even the right word for this. The right word is "Duh." As the final punchline, Rudy said "It is time for Americans to really insist that American politicians move beyond character assassination..."

There is no indication he meant that ironically.

And let's face it, this has nothing to do with Iraq. This has nothing to do with MoveOn.org or General Petraeus. Rudy did this because there is absolutely no good reason for him to run for president, beyond his ability to attack liberals. That's it. He's tossed out his former social positions. He has no moral or religious standing to speak of. He's relatively clueless on foreign and domestic affairs, and even the neo-cons feeding him foreign policy material are the bane of most Americans, with the term "neo-con" now considered to be an insult even by neo-conservatives. Even the publicly acknowledged reason for his candidacy is due to undeserved fame for an incident he should have been tarred and feathered for.

So all he's got is attacks on liberals, and there's no better liberal target for him than Hillary Clinton. Even then, she's really not a liberal, so he doesn't even have that going for him. But she's hated by the people Rudy needs to get the nomination, so this is the best he can do. So for Rudy to go on the offensive by denouncing "character assassins"? Sadly comical.