[Sabertooth]

if people were forbidden to propose ethical ideas they themselves don't live by, then ethics would be impossible.

This reminds me of something...

I remember once plowing through Kierkegaard ("Fear and Trembling," I think), and he talked about the positive aspects of hypocrisy. The ability to sense hypocrisy in oneself was a necessary precursor to ethical self-correction.

I've always thought that was a pretty good insight.

[Right Wing Professor]

I was going to add that that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, so I went to google to try to find out who originally said it. I found it attributed to Matthew Arnold (many times), La Rochefoucauld (many times), Ambrose Bierce, Voltaire, Montaigne, Meher Baba, and Alan Keyes, and then I stopped looking. If every bozo on the net is repeating a cliche and blaming it on the wrong person, it's time to give it up.

But I did find an interesting variation, by Richard John Neuhaus. "It used to be that hypocrisy was the tribute that vice paid to virtue, whereas now it is the charge that vice hurls at virtue". Those calling Rush a hypocrite might consider that one.