Wednesday, July 10, 2002

On the same topic of conservative hypocrisy, this is a column I wanted to write, but I can't improve on Peter Beinart in The New Republic:

The right's urge to blame Clinton stems partly from its refusal to acknowledge the basic tension within conservative ideology between cultural traditionalism and economic libertarianism. Whether it's Hollywood or Wall Street, conservatives hate to admit that it is the cultural amorality of the profit motive itself that sometimes produces moral rot. So when movie moguls or corporate chieftains choose the bottom line over basic decency, conservatives are reduced to suggesting that the scoundrels lost their family values at Woodstock (or by watching Clinton) rather than admit that they are simply following the structural incentives of an inadequately regulated free market.

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020722&s=trb072202

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