Last Week In The World: Biden, Blatter, China and Pope Francis. Last Two Weeks In America: Duggar ... and Hypocrisy

While the world was fed real news and opinions - Beau Biden's death, FIFA, a  China cruise ship disaster and Fundamentalism as a sickness - America was given ALL THINGS DUGGAR.

Even FOX was forced - literally FORCED, can you believe it! - to pay homage to the scandal of the family that embodied Hypocrisy (yes, a capital "H"). As more scandal details were gathered and interviews piled up, America was treated to (or bored with) more information about the (now) infamous brood than even avid viewers of "19 Kids And Counting" ever cared to have.

It's The Hypocrisy, Stupid!

The viral interest by the media in the Duggar scandal may be as simple as this: America loves to root out the hypocrites and topple them from their pedestals. From their pinnacle of PURITY.

Bill Maher:

“To me, these are the biggest freaks in the world,” Maher said of the Duggars. “[The father] is always leering, because he’s married, to the wife. 19 kids and he still wants to get in there?”

And:

Talk show co-host Whoopi Goldberg was the most full-throated in her rebuke of the "19 Kids And Counting" parents on Thursday, the morning after the Duggars had taken to Fox News' "The Kelly File" to defend their son, who molested five girls when he was a teen, and their own handling of the situation.
"You brought God up, so it makes it OK to say this," Goldberg said of the Duggar patriarch pleading for forgiveness for his oldest son. "You're not forgiving of people. You’re not forgiving of people who feel differently than you.”

Montel Williams continued his online tirade against the 'hypocritical' 19 Kids and Counting stars following their interview Wednesday on Fox News' The Kelly File.

'Nothing about these people is real. Nothing about these people isn't hypocritical,' Montel wrote of the congressman-turned-realtor. 

Sarah Posner, Religion Dispatches

The Duggars are no ordinary spokespeople for the religious right; they are super-spokespeople. For years, they have been held up as exemplars of biblical living, of devotion to Christ, and of, especially, homespun honest living and sexual purity. It’s long been obvious to many that this is a product of marketing and packaging, not reality. But now no one can pretend anymore.

Hypocrites, of course, joined to support the Duggar family: Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was shamed by his own supporters, while Palin people are, well, Palin people.

If the Kelly File interview with the Duggar parents was fraught with inconsistencies, then the interview with two of the Duggar daughters was a mess of a defense:

"We're not a perfect family." The interview by Megyn Kelly of the Duggar sisters focused on the aspect of the big H, but the answer was far from acceptable: the H lasted for years and years. The idea that the sisters never thought that Josh's problem would never come to light was too ridiculous. A cover up is a cover up is a cover up.

And of course, none of the Duggar family are hypocrites themselves according to the girls. They campaigned for Rick Santorum and his anti-gay platform in 2012. Their mother robo-called against an anti-discrimination law for Fayetteville, AR.(see below). But they certainly don't hate anybody, do they?

The Coming Weeks

We can only hope that the scandal will cause the Duggar show to be cancelled, causing uproar from the Christian Right (ala Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin), but sending the clan into Duck Dynasty world. Afterwards, America can get back to addressing real issues. Until then, we can expect more ridiculous interviews from the Duggars, and parodies like that of Funny or Die (taped, btw, before the actual Duggar interview - quite prescient to be sure). 

God save America from hypocrisy and boredom.