It is reasonable to expect anyone to walk the walk. It is not reasonable to become very angry when they don't. Elected officials are more of symbolic representations of the ideas they're elected to uphold/enforce/legislate/whatever, and I can't understand why people act surprised/angry/outraged when they realize these officials are just flawed humans like everyone else.
That said, it is perfectly reasonable to be pissed when they do something wrong. But the significance here is that they did something wrong and the severity of the act. Their actions matter much more than any disagreement between those actions and what they present about themselves. We should be angry at the act, not the hypocrisy.
The Bill Cosby example would point at any outrage over Bill Cosby being a serial rapist specifically while presenting himself as a wholesome character/person. If your problem is the disagreement between his actions and his presentation of himself as a wholesome character, there is something severely wrong with your reasoning for this anger. The disagreement between action/presentation is so infinitesimally small compared to the action itself. I seriously worry for the society and people in it that are more concerned over hypocrisy than the act.
I'm not sure Western thought agrees with that. Hypocrisy has long been considered extra evil. There's even a circle of Hell named for it, the 8th, Fraud, of which Hypocrisy is a special case.
That said, it is perfectly reasonable to be pissed when they do something wrong. But the significance here is that they did something wrong and the severity of the act. Their actions matter much more than any disagreement between those actions and what they present about themselves. We should be angry at the act, not the hypocrisy.
The Bill Cosby example would point at any outrage over Bill Cosby being a serial rapist specifically while presenting himself as a wholesome character/person. If your problem is the disagreement between his actions and his presentation of himself as a wholesome character, there is something severely wrong with your reasoning for this anger. The disagreement between action/presentation is so infinitesimally small compared to the action itself. I seriously worry for the society and people in it that are more concerned over hypocrisy than the act.