WHO'S A HYPOCRITE? LIMBAUGH CRITICS PASS ON DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

WHERE, o where, have the Hypocrisy Police gone?

Last month, they were out in full force, roundly condemning talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh after his announcement that he was addicted to prescription painkillers. But now, with three Democratic presidential candidates all but begging for their condemnation, the defenders of drug-policy consistency are nowhere to be seen.

Way back then - in October - culling thousands of hours of radio broadcasts, the Hypocrisy Police dug up an offhand comment in which Limbaugh bemoaned the social damage wrought by illegal drug use, noting that offenders ``ought to be sent up.'' Among the social libertines, for whom the only true sin is the rejection of social libertinism, this was just too much. Limbaugh was branded a capital-H hypocrite for supposedly falling short of his own lofty standards.

But if Limbaugh is a hypocrite, then what does that make presidential candidates Howard Dean, John Kerry and John Edwards?

At last week's ``Rock the Vote'' debate, all eight Democrats running for the White House were asked if they had ever used marijuana. Four of the candidates replied no, with Sen. Joseph Lieberman noting that he was, once again, ``giving unpopular answers in Democratic debates.'' Carol Moseley Braun refused to answer. But Dean, Kerry and Edwards admitted - to loud applause from the MTV-demographic audience - that they had not only smoked pot but also, presumably, inhaled.

Does that make them capital-H hypocrites?

As governor of Vermont, Dean worked just last year to kill a bill that would have legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Kerry, who has played both sides of the medical marijuana debate, declined to co-sponsor legislation authored by fellow Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank that would stop federal agents from harassing sick patients who use the drug to relieve their suffering.

Edwards has remarked that he has no objection to the Justice Department's arresting pot-smoking AIDS and cancer patients.

This is just the question of medical marijuana, mind you. While the candidates might waffle on whether the drug should be made available to the critically ill, none even pretends to support legalizing it for recreational uses, the likes of which all three, by their own admission, have engaged in.

Limbaugh might have once quipped about sending up drug users, but Dean, Kerry and Edwards, in their capacity as lawmakers, actually have sent up drug users. And, unlike Limbaugh, the drug they illegally used was never prescribed to them by a doctor for a legitimate medical condition.

Certainly this should be fodder for the Hypocrisy Police, no?

After all, literally scores, if not hundreds, of pundits quickly seized the opportunity to stick Limbaugh with the ``double-standard'' tag. Jesse Jackson joined the fray. So did Al Franken, who couldn't deny taking pleasure in Limbaugh's suffering.

Even Kerry got into the act, joking: ``There are two ways for you to have lower prescription drug costs: One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper or you could elect me president of the United States.''

Yet neither Jackson nor Franken - let alone Kerry or the countless others all too eager to make sport of Limbaugh's alleged hypocrisy - have uttered a peep about the three would-be presidents who would jail cancer victims for using a drug for medical treatment that they've used for fun.

Apparently only conservatives can be hypocrites.

And apparently the Hypocrisy Police care less about snuffing out philosophical inconsistencies than in bludgeoning their political opponents for their personal failings.

Lost on the Hypocrisy Police is that there are two sorts of hypocrisy. The first is the inevitable consequence of trying to maintain a moral order in a fallen world. Most everyone disdains lying, cheating or stealing, for example, yet there's not a person among us who, at one time or another, hasn't lied, cheated or stolen. Does that make us all hypocrites? In a sense, yes, but it's better to be a hypocrite than to live without shame or conscience.

Then there's the second, more odious form of hypocrisy - paying lip service to a certain set of standards not because one truly believes in them, but for opportunistic and manipulative purposes - i.e., the minister who insincerely preaches the virtues of tithing because he's skimming the collection plate.

Or to use a more timely example: The pundit who skewers his political opponents for ``hypocrisy,'' while turning a blind eye to his political allies' contradictions.

Like most every other vice, hypocrisy is one from which no one is immune, least of all the Hypocrisy Police.

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Photo:

(color) Democratic presidential hopefuls, from left, Joseph Lieberman, Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun, John Edwards, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich pause prior to a debate in Boston.

Elise Amendola/Associated Press