If a picture is worth a thousand words, the video of a mask-less Nancy Pelosi caught having her hair done at a shut-down San Francisco salon this past week is worth an entire dictionary.
The Speaker of the House immediately deployed the Marion Barry defense. When caught on video smoking crack with a hooker in 1990, the former mayor of Washington, D.C. and city councilman at the time exclaimed, “B**** set me up!”
Mrs. Pelosi said the same thing, albeit less colorfully. At least, in public.
On August 26, in an interview with Fox’s Tucker Carlson, salon owner Erica Kious disputed Mrs. Pelosi’s version of a “set up,” noting that the security camera had been there for years. Yes, the video was leaked, but the fact remains that Ms. Pelosi was caught doing something that her Democrat colleagues have made illegal. Nothing changes that.
“I just thought about my staff and people not being able to work and make money and provide for their families,” Ms. Kious said, noting that her business has been devastated by six months of government-mandated closure. “And if she is in there comfortably without a mask and feeling safe, then why are we shut down? Why am I not able to have clients come in?”
One of the most stinging critiques of politicians is the charge of hypocrisy. For example, most powerful Democrats, such as the Kennedys, the Clintons and the Obamas, sent their own children to private schools while cheering on the Marxist teachers’ unions that have ruined public schools.
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was caught in 2007 getting a $1,250 haircut while crying crocodile tears over the plight of the poor. He also played up traditional family values until the National Enquirer exposed his extramarital affair.
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Bill Clinton’s sexcapades, which the media covered up less successfully than John F. Kennedy’s serial adultery, are now common knowledge. The media still show little curiosity about Mr. Clinton’s relationship to the late sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, however.
In May 1993, Mr. Clinton famously got a pricey haircut by stylist Christophe aboard Air Force One on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport.
The press actually went kind of nuts, accusing Mr. Clinton of tying up air traffic. FAA records later showed this wasn’t true, according to the Los Angeles Times. The press apparently wanted to embarrass Clinton for his shabby treatment of them during the Travelgate scandal. If so, it’s one of the few times a Democrat was on the receiving end of the kind of hatchet job they do to Republicans every single day.
There’s hypocrisy on the right as well, of course. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican who championed family values, pled guilty in 2015 to a financial scheme over being blackmailed for molesting boys when he was a wrestling coach.
More recently, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s complicity in his wife’s years-long affair with a Miami pool boy is especially shocking partly because of its rarity in those circles.
Open, shameless hypocrisy, on the other hand, abounds on the Left. They spew hate while decrying as “haters” anyone who disagrees with them. They loudly praise “free speech” while erecting a cancel culture that silences dissent. They say they love America while trashing our country as uniquely evil.
Black Lives Matter and Antifa goons are rioting, burning and looting nightly in cities like Portland, and even killing people, while Democrat mayors hamstring the police, enjoy personal security and blame President Trump.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has had the police shut down streets around her residence, with dozens of officers to protect her while the Windy City’s murder rate skyrockets.
Last weekend, Philadelphia’s Democrat Mayor Jim Kenney was caught dining without a mask at a Maryland restaurant. His city forbids indoor dining at eateries, which has bankrupted many of them. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who lashed the NYPD for not wearing masks at riots, was caught without a mask, as was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Mr. Cuomo, who inexplicably told the Democratic National Convention that COVID-19 is a “European virus,” claimed that his disastrous policies “worked. And it was beautiful.” New York has racked up the most COVID-19 deaths.
In June, the Wall Street Journal examined the New York response, concluding that, “Cuomo and de Blasio delayed taking measures to close the state and city even as the number of cases swelled, despite warnings from doctors, nurses and schoolteachers.” Indeed, Mayor de Blasio on March 2 tweeted that people should go see a movie.
Worst of all, Mr. Cuomo ordered nursing homes to readmit people who tested positive, thus putting the most vulnerable population at risk. Meanwhile, of the 1,000 beds on a U.S. Navy hospital ship sent by President Trump, only 182 were used.
But now, Mrs. Pelosi calls it the “Trump virus” and Mr. Trump’s supporters “enemies of the state.”
I think the Democrats are in deep trouble. For months, they didn’t criticize the rioters until presidential polls started tightening. Suddenly, even Joe Biden is opposing the violence.
As for salon owner Ms. Kious, she’s being harassed for outing Mrs. Pelosi’s rank hypocrisy.
“Since this has happened, I have received nothing but hate text messages, death threats, [they say] they’re going to burn my hair salon down,” she said.
The mob doesn’t take it well when someone exposes their enablers.
Robert Knight is a Townhall contributor. His website is roberthknight.com.
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