I’ve been meaning to respond to M. LeBlanc’s post questioning the “hypocrisy strategy” since she wrote it, but it took awhile to get my thoughts together on it. The hypocrisy strategy in question is an attempt to undermine Republican credibility by showing how many Republican politicians are saying two things simultaneously about the stimulus bill. When they’re in D.C. and trying to hurt Obama, they say that the stimulus was a complete failure that didn’t do anything to create jobs or improve the economy. When they’re back home trying to stir up enthusiasm for themselves as legislators, they are praising the stimulus and, most importantly, taking credit for something they voted against. In some cases, they whip out giant checks full of money they have openly denounced and pretend that they’re the source of the funds. As M. notes, Rachel Maddow has been hitting this hard.
But as this round-up from Maddow’s show demonstrates, the argument is taking off, with multiple media outlets picking up the narrative, including conservative ones:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
M.‘s criticisms are twofold: She’s wary of calling people hypocrites, because this reduces complex human responses to soundbites, and that’s fundamentally dishonest. But also, she doesn’t think the Republicans are hypocrites on this:
There’s nothing hypocritical about what the Republicans are doing. I thought then, and continue to think, that the “gotcha”-ism of trying to get Republican governors to say they would reject the stimulus money was misguided. In fact, their world view is completely coherent if you look at what they do, rather than what they say. What they say is a string of platitudes that pretend that they actually care about the health and well-being of Americans. They have to do this, because they’re politicians. And Democrats let them get away with it, because they’re politicians.