Tea at Trianon: Pervasive Hypocrisy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Pervasive Hypocrisy

From The New York Post:

Hypocrisy is Washington, DC’s lifeblood, so it was a nice change when DC Judge Ana Reyes lambasted the Justice Department for instructing two lawyers in its Tax Division to disregard a congressional subpoena in the Hunter Biden investigation, all while it has been zealously prosecuting Trump officials for the very same offense. Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, is sitting in jail for defying a subpoena from Nancy Pelosi’s star chamber, the January 6 committee.

“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said, referring to Navarro. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas … I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up.”

It’s about time someone in authority called out the hypocrisy and egregious double standard permeating every corner of the federal government, and if even a Biden-appointed judge like Reyes can see the problem, you know we’ve reached a tipping point. It’s a crowded field, but one of the worst forked tongues in the Biden administration is IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. He professes to Congress that he protects whistleblowers, but in practice he has hung Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler out to dry. (Read more.)