Saturday, October 07, 2017

Hypocrisy Is Impossible for People Who Have No Self-Awareness

Steve made an essential point the other day in his post about Harvey Weinstein:
I don't care how much "liberal media bias" you think there is in the mainstream press -- it will still go after liberals and Democrats. The conservative media? Critical pieces are written only when a conservative isn't conservative enough. There's no self-policing on the right. There's just boosterism, augmented by relentless attacks on the left.
Today "Even the Liberal" New York Times illustrates the point with an op-ed by Bari Weiss, who specializes in lazy sniping at easy liberal targets like the Chicago Dyke March and the idea of cultural appropriation. Her piece today hits all the predictable notes about liberal/feminist hypocrisy; all you really need to know about it is that she quotes Camille Paglia.

And most of the right isn't nearly as restrained as that. The most jaw-dropping right-wing reactions are these two tweets: Let's be clear: Harvey Weinstein is scum, and too many people let him get away with it for too long. But the party of Harvey Weinstein is (belatedly) condemning Harvey Weinstein, while the party of Donald Trump is so inured to self-criticism that two of the most important enablers of an unapologetic serial sexual abuser are sniping at Democrats about Harvey Weinstein.

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