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Well, it is that time of year again. Every once in a while we round up recent examples of liberal hypocrisy and expose it to the glaring spotlight of truth. I could, of course, make this my full time job—there is certainly enough liberal hypocrisy to justify writing about it every week. However, I like to keep my subject matter a bit more varied than that. This column will concentration the most recent examples of liberal hypocrisy, and there have been some juicy bits of fork-tongued wagging going on.

Our first example of liberal hypocrisy comes from that bastion of the British left—not to be confused with the American left, which is more like the British center—the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC. The BBC was fairly upset that Prime Minister Blair agreed to liberate Iraq. I mean, not only did he not allow the press to decide the issue for him, he went against "popular" opinion! Obviously, he had to be taken down a few pegs. The BBC decided to publish a story allegedly detailing how Prime Minister Blair "sexed up" the evidence against Iraq in order to justify going to war against the dictator Saddam Hussein.

This attitude always struck me as a bit odd. Who needed to "sex up" the evidence? Hussein was a living example of an "evil dictator" that we read about in history books and pose questions such as "if you could go back in time and stop him, would you?" Well, guess what? President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and their allies did just that. And now the truth has come out about the BBC story. It is the BBC itself that has "sexed up" evidence to support their own bias, not Prime Minister Blair. The fallout has been considerable. Top executives at the BBC have resigned and liberals everywhere are frantically waving their hands and claiming that it is nothing more than a whitewash of the whole affair, or perhaps a giant pro-Blair conspiracy is at work. Apparently, irony is lost on the liberals who are trying to defend the BBC by claiming that (get this) they should not have to be 100% correct if their ultimate goal is well-intentioned. So, the liberal press has the "right" to be wrong, especially when they are claiming the leader of a nation has no right to be wrong. Any questions?

Another recent example of liberal hypocrisy is the supposed cries of anguish over the size of the Federal deficit. If we are to believe liberals, Federal spending is "too high" and all that spending is a "threat to future generations". Now, I do not recall any liberal anguish over spending when they were in control of Congress for the majority of the 20th Century. Back then spending was "investment" and deficits were a result of the evil rich simply not paying enough in taxes.

As usual, the opinions and stances of liberals will change depending upon who is in the White House. With President Bush residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue anything done by the Federal government has now become an outrage to liberals. Ignoring their false claims that the current deficit is a "record", we can simply point out that liberals have proposed even more spending over the past few years. Republicans in Congress have voted down and additional $1 trillion in spending proposed by the Democrats. Liberals are also claiming that education is under funded despite record increases in funding. So...is the deficit too high or isn't it?! Liberals really need to explain how they can be so concerned about the level of Federal spending on one hand, and yet on the other be calling for even more spending.

Speaking of more spending, yet another example of liberal hypocrisy is the recent Medicare drug benefit bill passed by Congress. Despite an initial estimate of over $400 billion in costs to the taxpayer, and an updated figure of well over $500 billion, liberals are claiming that the bill does not go far enough to provide prescription drug benefits to seniors. Again, there is the issue of costs. If the Federal deficit is a threat to future generations, where is the logic in giving discounted drugs to seniors if it harms their grandchildren? Moreover, if costs and spending are such a huge issues, why did the Democrat version of prescription drug benefits come in at twice the level of spending as the Republican bill? Clearly, liberals cannot remain logically consistent on any issue. When spending is due to their programs, no level is unsafe, and no cost too great for the current voters...I mean seniors...to benefit from.

To conclude this all-to-brief list of recent hypocrisy we spotlight the current Democrat candidates for President. All of them have criticized the President on the liberation of Iraq, just as the BBC whined about Blair's involvement in freeing millions of Iraqis. In another bit of hypocrisy, some of these candidates are the same people who voted in Congress to authorize President Bush to use force and who have themselves supported the use of force to settle conflicts in a foreign land. Senator Kerry voted with the majority of Congress when they authorized President Bush to go to war and has been denying it ever since. Despite the clear cut evidence that he voted "yes" on the measure, he has been trying to spin it as a vote to "consider" force, or perhaps a vote to give the United Nations another chance or even a vote against the use of force. Which is it, Senator Kerry? Well, it is both! Nor is this a new thing for Senator Kerry. The New Republic has reprinted excerpts from two letters showing Kerry trying to have it both ways over the first Persian Gulf War:

Jan. 22, 1991: "Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition...to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war."

Jan. 31, 1991: "Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."

Joining Senator Kerry in a hypocritical anti-Bush...I mean anti-war...stance is General Wesley Clark. He will tell anyone who will listen (which isn't a whole lot of people these days) that he never would have attacked Iraq like President Bush did. The problem with that is that General Clark did support using force, and he tried to brag about it while he continued to attack President Bush for choosing the very same path:

...I led our forces in another war that saved a million and a half people. If you want someone to get us out of a war, you elect a general who's been in a war and knows how little can be accomplished by fighting.

I really do not know what our liberal friends are trying to accomplish by being both for and against everything the President and his allies do. Shouldn't they simply pick a side and stick to it? They can learn a lot from our "friends" the French and Russians, who, having been bought off by Iraqi oil money, have decided to stick to their stories about Saddam and the war. This despite the mountain of evidence they not only chose the wrong side, they did it for money. I guess "no blood for oil" really meant "no blood, if you give us oil".

I will remain on the lookout for an issue on which liberals can remain logically consistent. Wish me luck!

Every once in a while we round up recent examples of liberal hypocrisy and expose it to the glaring spotlight of truth.

Who needed to "sex up" the evidence?

Clearly, liberals cannot remain logically consistent on any issue.

So, according to Clark, it is okay to use force to save a million and a half people, but not okay to use force to save 26 million people.