Hypocrisy Award Dept.

There are always a lot of pretenders to the throne for this occasional tribute, but the blatant examples don't make the cut. Rank "sauce for the goose but not for the gander" hypocrisies such as demanding Iran and North Korea disarm their nuclear arsenals while we expand ours just don't have the slimy subtlety that the panel of distinguished judges (well, actually, I) require. But we do have a new recipient.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who met with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials during the 1980s to reassure them of U.S. support despite the country's use of chemical weapons, Tuesday dismissed the importance of new revelations about the meetings. ...

Rumsfeld on Tuesday said that such diplomacy was standard in history and that the United States continued to have relations with countries that are "not behaving in the way we would like them to behave".

True enough, and so do most other countries. But how many times has exactly the same person who condoned the behavior then used exactly that same behavior to justify invading and taking over exactly that same country?