Having read the Fray posts relating to this article to date, I feel like I did when I was a teacher aide in high school grading student's papers. Time and again, those who sought to contribute to the discussion lost focus and strayed from their original argument. All too often, the same lack of reason the writers decried was used by them in their arguments. More forgivable, though no less often, people simply couldn't remember how to spell "hypocrisy" or "hypocrite."

These would-be philosophers--no doubt "moral" in their own minds--take umbrage with Landburg, not for saying that Sen. Allen may not technically be a hypocrite, but rather for Landburg's poor illustration of an economic principle. Truly, they "fail to see the forest for the trees." I'll grant that Landburg's choice of examples was probably not as clear as he was hoping to make it, and I'm sure he can come up with a less-distracting example now.

Back to the idea that Landburg (I think) was trying to convey: that Senator Allen's proposed legislation and contrary actions may not necessarily make him a hypocrite, based on socio-economic principles. An example of my own hypocrisy may illustrate this better: People speed down my street every day, putting my own and my neighbor's children at risk. Much discussion has led the community to decide that such behavior must stop. And yet, I find myself constantly driving 10 or more mph over the limit just a few blocks further down the street, where more children live, and think nothing of it. Why do I cry foul where my children are concerned, but not others?

The answer seems to be obvious: I'm selfish. Let that part of the neighborhood do as seems fit to them to protect their children, but I want a stop sign, speed bumps, etc. on my block, and I want someone else to pay most of the cost for those measures. In a similar way, Sen. Allen is being selfish in suggesting that the law he'd like to see implemented obviously wouldn't apply to him. Call it demagoguery if you want, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that he can justify his actions with himself--if only for that moment of weakness--while seeing that the greater good would probably be served by banning the same behavior on a large scale. The question is not, as one poster has suggested, what constitutes a bigger sin, but rather, how does this man justify his sin?

Is Allen a hypocrite? Absolutely. But not because of his proposed legislation. That he was willing to sponsor the legislation despite his own weakness suggests that he embraces his inner hypocrite and carries on trying to do right in the world. His actions don't diminish the bill's credibility, rather they bring awareness to it and provide fodder for us to debate the moral relevance of such laws. Whatever happens to Mr. Allen, he can honestly say that he "fought the good fight."

>>Whatever happens to Mr. Allen, he can honestly say that he "fought the good fight."

Bob, is that you? Or one of the strangers he met in the bathroom?