A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on July 12th, 2009 in US News

Short of the universe of the Jabberwock, words have some set meaning. Sometimes they have one denoted meaning and another connotated meaning, but they have a meaning. So I have to take one of my favorite columnists, Gail Collins, to task for this badly worded turn:

We hardly need to point out that Ensign was one of the people who demanded that President Bill Clinton resign over the Lewinsky affair, that he votes against financing for education and contraception services to combat teenage pregnancy and that he supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In the world of politics, hypocrisy is a hard market to corner, but lately the Republicans have been making a Microsoft-like effort to do it.

Well, there is nothing about voting against any of that stuff that borders on hypocrisy. The only thing that comes close is the news of Ensign’s affair. Even then, we’d have to go back and get the context of Ensign’s remarks to see if he wanted the resignation over the affair or the lying under oath about it. Yeah, I know it’s splitting a hair and the “lying under oath” thing was just a front for going after Clinton for having sex with Monica Lewinsky, but it’s an important hair to split. Especially if someone is going to lob around the charge of hypocrisy.

The whole mess with Ensign having an affair with the wife of someone who worked for him and having his parents (Ensign’s) pay the unhappy couple $96,000 in hush money “out of concern” for the “family” is simply raising tawdry to the good old level of Alexander Hamilton. But it’s between him and his constituents. I don’t need to hear about it.

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