Recently, several conservative politicians, moralists and evangelicals have
been embroiled in scandal. As congressmen, Tom Delay and Duke Cunningham had
publicized brushes with ethics laws, while their former colleague Mark Foley
and Ted Haggard, who was pastor of a large evangelical church, were
implicated in embarrassing sexual affairs.
In the past, scandal has hit other prominent conservative commentators who
preach public virtue while indulging their private appetites, whether for
gambling, drug use or other vices.
But moralist Republicans don't have the market cornered on hypocrisy. If
giving into excess embarrasses some of them, for a number of Democrats -
supposedly the party of the people - hypocrisy arises from enjoying elite
privileges while alleging that America bestows favors unduly on the few.
In today's Roman circus, talking populist while enjoying the high life mixes
no better for the left than mouthing old-fashioned virtue and living the low
life do for the right.
Billionaire liberal George Soros has harangued the Bush administration for
its supposed amorality in Iraq. But he's bought into it - literally.
Capitalist profit seems always to trump his loud leftist ideology. That
might explain why Soros' management company just purchased nearly 2 million
stock shares of Halliburton, the contractor formerly run by hobgoblin to the
left Dick Cheney and now demonized by liberals as a war profiteer.
Al Gore has preached to millions about the dangers of climate change caused
by profligate carbon emissions. But his mansion and the private jets he has
often used burn up far more fossil fuels than what the average citizens whom
Gore browbeats to change their wasteful lifestyles consume.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi promised to end the privilege of Republican
elites. Well and good. But as speaker of the House, she requested a
gas-guzzling outsized jet for her personal trips back to San Francisco - at
a cost that far surpassed that accorded to her predecessor.
Presidential candidate John Edwards serially laments the "two Americas," one
wealthy, one poor. But this multimillionaire trial lawyer just finished
building a new 28,000 square-foot mansion. His palace is beyond the means
even of most people belonging to Edwards' rich nation who supposedly benefit
at the expense of poorer Americans.
For both liberals and conservatives, the days of the simple-living Harry
Truman and clean-living Dwight Eisenhower are apparently long gone - and for
two reasons.
First, the country has changed. Globalization, high technology and billions
in borrowed money have made Americans in general materially wealthy beyond
our parents' wildest imagination.
All that money and leisure have brought constant temptations for indulgence.
For all the rhetoric of "family values" and "two nations," Americans from
all walks of life gobble up everything from video games to luxury cars on
nearly unlimited easy credit.
Debt, drink, drugs, gambling, lotteries and sex all happen without much
restraint or rebuke - and our most prominent are often the most susceptible
to these new appetites. In modern American life, "do you own thing" on a
charge card is the new national gospel. Despite the nostalgic rhetoric of
morality and populism, few Democrats or Republicans have constituents in bib
overalls plowing alone till dusk out on the south 40 acres.
Second, in our world of celebrity sound bites and media saturation, talk,
not reality, is what counts. Multimillionaires lecture us about fairness,
while sinners rail about sin.
In politics, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each election year on
campaigning. Image-makers, pollsters and media advisers shape every
election. Fluffy candidates are removed enough from the electorate that the
old idea that their own actions should match their rhetoric is seen as
hopelessly old-fashioned.
The political leaders of this country are essentially too often homogenous.
Republicans may represent constituents of traditional values; Democrats may
champion the underprivileged. But their similar lifestyles reflect more a
political class's shared privilege than the inherent differences of their
respective constituents' beliefs. National figures may talk conservative or
liberal, but they both are more likely to act like libertines.