HYPOCRITICS

Do you have an employer whom you can never please? Perhaps it is a parent or a spouse or a sibling who forever judges you inadequate. It is a kind of abuse; the abuser’s reward comes from denying you the satisfaction that you are performing within his/her expectations -– expectations that shift as abruptly as Lucy moves her football.

President Obama’s conservative critics are abusive in a similar manner. They twist their principles and distort their standards so that they can wail in indignation at the most recent incompetence and/or power grab by this vaguely un-American usurper. To characterize this behavior as rank hypocrisy is to be too generous to the ravenous naysayers. These people are playing a very childish game that is detrimental to our very democracy. I realize that this is an extreme statement but I write it with no hint of hyperbole whatsoever.