Blatant double standards by media personalities continually amaze me.

Joy Behar got on incoming House Speaker John Boehner’s case for tearing up (again) during an interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes. Stahl had asked Boehner about his, by now well-known, proclivity to turn on the waterworks in public. Behar’s comments followed a clip of the 60 Minutes exchange that went like this:

Boehner: I can’t go to a school anymore. I see a lot of schools. I see all these little kids running around. I can’t talk about it.

Stahl: Why?

Boehner: Making sure that these kids have a shot at the American dream — like I did. That’s important. (He cries.)

Back to the studio. Renowned psychiatrist Barbara Walters declares “This guy has an emotional problem, that anytime he talks about anything that’s not ‘raise taxes’ he cries.” Then, of course, there was the expected stuff about imagining if outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi cried in public and the supposed double standard there would be in the reaction.

Needless to say, Joy found Barbara’s diagnosis and comments to be both hysterical and astute before then chiming in with an observation of her own:

Behar: It’s interesting to watch him cry because I’ve been watching him now. We call him the “Weeper of the House.” He cries only when he talks about how sad his life was. He had to sweep floors. He was a janitor. And he pursued the “American Dream.” And yet he has very little empathy for people who are in that position now.”

Behar may have been watching Boehner cry but she obviously wasn’t listening the clip that played just moments earlier. Say what you want about what the weeping says about the man’s ability to check his emotions at the House door but, if anything, that exchange with Leslie Stahl reveals a man of extreme empathy. He was talking about his deep desire to put forth policies that he believes will give today’s kids the same shot at success that he had.

Behar may not approve of those policies but her assessment of Boehner was clearly contradicted by that clip.

Now to the real double standard. Compare Behar’s reaction to Boehner’s tears to her take on Hillary Clinton’s emotional moment during the New Hampshire primary campaign a couple years back. At that point in time, she criticized the media for focusing on HIllary’s moment this way:

Behar: How many times do we have to see Hillary choking up? I mean, don’t we have
anything else to watch? Every one of these men have had the moment of verklemptness. We don’t have it on a loop like poor Hillary.”

Predictably, she immediately took back the “poor Hillary” part of her analysis — noting that Hillary is, in fact, tough and “took on (Tim) Russert yesterday like a gladiator.”

BTW, both exit polling and Hillary Clinton herself, suggested that her “verklempt”  moment (far from damaging her politically) played a key role in propelling her to win the New Hampshire primary. 

Now my own view is that I think Boehner’s tendency toward tears is sincere (unless he’s a very good actor) and represents the kind of heartfelt belief in the American Dream that I would like to see more of in our politicians. Personally, I’m tired of cynicism whether it be in Hollywood or Washington.

But, while I think an emotional Speaker of the House is okay. would I want to see Boehner as President?  Probably not. It’s like Dr. McCoy’s emotion served a purpose on Star Trek but you really wanted Capt. Kirk at the helm of the Enterprise. Right now, we’ve got Spock in the captain’s chair which doesn’t quite work either.   

But I digress. Back to my point. Would there have been a double standard if current House Speaker Pelosi was the one welling up on 60 Minutes and not John Boehner? Almost undoubtedly yes. At least on The View.