EDITORIAL: No monopoly on political hypocrisy

An arm of the Democratic Party believes Las Vegas is uniquely fertile ground for political hypocrisy.

Las Vegas is widely considered the front-runner to host the 2016 Republican National Convention. The party’s official pick won’t be made for months, but American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research and tracking organization, clearly is hoping GOP delegates take over the Strip. As reported last week by Politico, American Bridge plans to dispatch dozens of operatives with video cameras to stalk convention attendees, candidates and elected officials, catch them having a good time and post footage to the Internet and social media — provided Las Vegas wins the selection process.

It’s laughable to suggest that American Bridge would not try to document and publicize bad behavior by Republicans if another city won the convention. It’s equally laughable to imply that other cities in the running for the convention offer fewer opportunities for Republicans to take their celebrations too far, whether they involve bars, casinos, nightclubs, topless joints or any other place that might cause a moralistic social conservative to faint.

The American Bridge plan is revealing, however, because the group clearly believes its best opportunity to bust two-faced Republicans will come two years from now. There certainly is no shortage of conservative phonies, from adulterers to pork-barrel spenders. But nothing in politics is as bipartisan as hypocrisy. And you don’t need to wait until 2016 to see Democrats say one thing and do entirely another. You just need to check out today’s news.

Take the Democratic Party’s relentless advocacy for “working families” and the middle class. Elected officials claim to look out for the millions of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck or are out of work, but the Democrats’ anti-growth tax and economic policies have hurt job creation and limited opportunities for those most in need of employment. Obamacare has increased the cost of health insurance and incentivized part-time labor. The tax code punishes the investment necessary to create jobs. And Democrats support increasing the federal minimum wage, a step that would put hundreds of thousands of low-skill workers on the unemployment line and further price teenagers out of the labor market.

President Barack Obama recently launched the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, a program to create more opportunity for young blacks. The black teen unemployment rate is 38 percent (a figure that will only rise with an increase in the minimum wage) and far too many black children are stuck in failing public schools. Yet Mr. Obama has consistently sought to ax Washington’s popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, vouchers that have allowed thousands of black children from low-income families to attend better schools. And Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has effectively declared war on his city’s high-achieving charter schools, which overwhelmingly benefit low-income, minority children.

The president has touted infrastructure investment as a way to create jobs, but he refuses to approve the privately funded Keystone XL pipeline. And on and on.

So hunt for political hypocrisy all you want, American Bridge. Come to Las Vegas in two years. Turn on those cameras. Then point them at the mirror.