Sextomom Smacks Al Gore

One of the best-loved arrows in a blogger's quiver is the venerable Hypocrisy! charge. The semiliterate dogmatist trotted out this accusation recently against the top vote-getter in the 2000 Presidential election, Al Gore. (Should you read Sheila Kihne's post, you'll learn--aided by the blogger's dependable subtlety--she's 'WAY smarter than Al Gore'.) But leaving aside Kihne's idiotic global warming denialism and her absurd twisting of words concerning the Fort Hood tragedy, does her charge of hypocrisy stick?

No. Kihne argues that Al Gore supports the anti-GW movement in pursuit of ulterior motives, since he's made large investments in green technology. But many rich people put their business investments in alignment with their ideological interests. Kihne offers nothing to her non-fanatic readers, to persuade us that Gore's enthusiasm for the green movement is insincere.

What if a medical researcher, over a long career, invented an anticarcinogenic regimen that resulted in the halving of person-years lost to cancer? Along the way, we learn that the researcher has made large investments in anticancer technologies. Would Sheila Kihne argue that the researcher's hypocrisy now merits ridicule?

What if the researcher were later exposed as a lifelong, closeted cigarette smoker? Would that make her a hypocrite whose opinions on cancer ought henceforth to be disregarded? Of course not--it simply wouldn't matter.

A general rule applies to civil discourse: We assume sincere intentions unless we can provide clear, convincing reasoning for withdrawing that assumption. Sheila Kihne simply doesn't observe this basic tenet of gentlepersonhood--and it shows. It's too bad that the primary beneficiaries of her political activism haven't yet seen fit to distance themselves from her. Kihne's support should embarrass them.