It's Not the Hypocrisy, It's the Sex

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: repugs don't respond to accusations of hypocrisy because the freakazoids don't consider hypocrisy a sin. In fact, there's nothing they love better than a contrite sinner. The more outrageous the sin, the more forgiveness and acceptance the sinner receives.

Paul Krugman nailed it, in a blog post perfectly titled "Sex and the Married Politician."

From their point of view the cause, the need to police what people do in bed, is, by definition, right, because it’s literally God-given. So the fact that some of those trying to police what other people do in bed are themselves doing nasty things does not reflect on the cause itself — on the contrary, it shows just how necessary more bed-snooping is.

It’s also notable that conservatives are, in practice, more forgiving of their politicians’ sins than liberals. John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer ended their political careers; Ensign and Vitter are still in the Senate, and Newt Gingrich is out there on the Sunday shows, speaking for the GOP. Why? Because where liberals see gross hypocrisy, conservatives see men doing the Lord’s work — which partially excuses their own failings. Liberals think that a man who has an affair is worse if he preaches moral values; conservatives think he’s better. You might say that as they see it, if he interferes with what enough other people do in bed, it doesn’t matter what he does himself.

Read the whole thing.