As I suspected, I’ve convinced no one. I did like this email — and I agree with much of it:

“But conservatives champion a higher standard and therefore should adhere to it.”
I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. Liberals will tell you that it is THEY who champion the higher standard. For a long time they styled themselves as the defenders of women against the male chauvinist Republicans. Remember Bob Packwood? In spite of Bill Clinton, they still cling to this belief.
In any case the left has its own pieties which supposedly its politicians should adhere to. But things such as Ted Kennedy’s ownership of an oil company or blocking of a wind power farm, and Al Gores conspicious over consumption of energy and gigantic carbon foorprint, never count as reasons to bring them down, in the lefts eyes.
Why is that? Because the left does not care if they do these things themselves, so long as they enact legislation to make it difficult for other people to do the same. In this the left is being quite practical and pragmatic, if hypocritical. They see hypocrisy as a useful charge to level against their opponents, but they are never so stupid as to use it against themselves.