On hypocrisy

I was reading an interesting Newsweek article on how President Bush has been successful in foreign policy only when he does things that he says he's not going to do. For example, the January elections in Iraq weren't the original plan. Condi Rice is doing better in Europe by selling cooperation hard after telling the world that we would go it alone.

The cold war had that irony too. The Democrats couldn't get us out of Vietnam because they were the party that was "soft on commies" but a Republican could and did get us out. John Kerry would have had a hard time getting us out of Iraq for the same reasons. Our best hope of getting out of Iraq is probably Republican hypocrisy. Because it is established in the American mind that the Republicans are tough on terrorists and the Democrats aren't, the Republicans have more room to maneuver than the Democrats do.

So, on the question of what the Democrats should do to get back into things, one answer might be to become hypocrites too. I hope there is a better answer. Because if our elected officials are all consistently lying to us, what does democracy mean?

On the other hand, I'm going to have to continue to root for GW to lie to us because if he is telling the truth about how he will handle the war in Iraq, social security, and the separation between church and state, we're all in trouble.