no matter how many times you say it, it's not hypocrisy, and it wouldn't matter if it was

One more thing. The favorite argument of the pro-voucher movement gets amplified again, this time courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

If Christie were acting in such a way as to limit the opportunities of other children while his own children were enjoying benefits not available to others, then where his kids go to school would be the business of the public. The fact President Obama sends his children to an elite private school while seeking to kill opportunity scholarship vouchers for poor kids is just such an example of hypocrisy that is very much the business of all Americans.

Jesus.

Look, guys. This is what Obama is doing: he's a) paying for his children to attend an expensive private school and b) opposing public subsidies of other people doing the same. In other words, he is defending the right to pay for something with private funds while opposing using public funds to pay for the same. You can agree or disagree with that on the merits, but that is hypocrisy? Huh:? Is everyone who has health insurance but is opposed to socialized medicine guilty of hypocrisy? Is everyone who owns a car but doesn't want to pay taxes for public transportation guilty of hypocrisy? Isn't supporting the right to pay for something yourself while not supporting government paying for it a perfectly common argument in American politics?

We already pay for other students to go to school! It's called the public school system. There is literally no other issue where this thinking is ever applied. I am not allowed to take my "share" of the taxes I pay that go to the FDA to have my meat inspected privately. I'm not allowed to take my "share" of the taxes that go to water filtration and use it to buy bottled water. I'm not allowed to take my "share" of parks department taxes and use it to landscape my lawn. And on and on. And if someone has supplemental health insurance, and opposes providing access to similar coverage publicly, I might not agree with it, but I don't mistake it for hypocrisy. Saying "don't pay publicly for what I pay privately" is not the same as saying "don't do what I do," particularly when there is already a publicly funded alternative to what is being privately paid for.

Oh, and by the way, even if there were hypocrisy, it would say nothing about the merits of school vouchers. And the merits are bad! Vouchers don't work! The evidence that exists is profoundly negative!

How does this stuff persist?