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| Oct 20th, 2004 04:34 PM | |||
| kellychaos |
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| Oct 19th, 2004 04:53 PM | |||
| Spectre X |
Kelly is like an optimistic little beam of sunlight to me in this gray, depressing world. Even if this only goes for me. |
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| Oct 19th, 2004 04:29 PM | |||
| kellychaos | This just in! They've isolated the gay gene ... and it's FABULOUS! | ||
| Oct 19th, 2004 02:56 PM | |||
| Bass | Yeah wasn't the question where he brought up her name not even about gay marriage or gay rights? I was under the impression that the question was about if people were born gay, or made gay (a question which I believe GW just avoided) | ||
| Oct 19th, 2004 02:47 PM | |||
| Ant10708 |
Jonah Goldberg's opinion on the matter: There’s Something About Kerry Using Mary Cheney. I was traveling when the Mary Cheney thing erupted and I've been trying to keep up ever since. I feel like I have an odd personal insight into this story because I know what it's like for people to make a public issue of a relative. For those of you who don't recall, during the Clinton-Lewinsky stuff my mom was the second-most-hated woman in "enlightened" liberal circles. And for quite a while, I was the only person willing to publicly defend her. For months on end, Clinton's hatchet team and their friends in the media slimed her, mocked me (Esquire gave her a "dubious achievement award" for giving birth to me), and generally sought to make the case for Clinton by demolishing my mom (this, of course, was always the way Clintonites made their case — crush the inconvenient women). There's no need to revisit all of that, but it did leave me with something of an insider's perspective on how families play in politics. After all, the other great Clintonite defense was that the commander-in-chief's baron-and-the-milkmaid act with an intern was a "family" matter. Anyway, as for Mary Cheney, it seems to me that a lot of the commentary has missed the mark. First, Mary Cheney wasn't "outed." As Andrew McCarthy, Andrew Sullivan, and others have noted, outing has a specific meaning. It was well known that Mary Cheney is gay, even if it was news to some of the millions watching the debate. It may have been Kerry's intent to publicize her status more widely — and I'll get back to that in a second — but if outing means anything it means taking away from a specific individual the decision to inform friends, family, and colleagues that he is gay. Kerry didn't do that. Second, almost all of the references to gay-rights pieties or anti-gay bigotries swirling around are beside the point. Sure, Andrew Sullivan is correct to note a certain double standard when the Cheneys in particular and Republicans in general have been fairly silent on far-worse anti-homosexual insults bandied around in conservative circles. Why? Because with family — but most especially with children — all standards are double, or triple, or whatever they need to be. We have a special ownership over our kids, a zone in which all abstract or partisan points must be made with great care or, better, not at all. Sullivan and others ask, What about Alan Keyes's nastiness toward Mary Cheney? Why didn't the Cheneys speak up about that? Fair enough. Go ahead and ask them. My guess is that the Cheneys probably did make their displeasure known. But what they didn't want to do is call attention to the fact that Keyes is unhinged or give him more attention to insult their daughter. But all such questions — about the Cheneys' position on gay marriage, on Alan Keyes, on the alleged "homophobia" running through the mainstream of the Republican party — are irrelevant. Maybe the Cheneys have a double standard. Maybe their anger is just a pose. I highly doubt it, but maybe it is. So what? What is important and revealing is not what Kerry said about Mary Cheney but what Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney say about him. Andrew Sullivan, Hilary Rosen, and others can complain all they like about double standards and false outrage — none of that changes the fact that what Kerry did was creepy. Think of it this way: If Kerry had said that Dick Cheney's daughter is a "deviant," Andrew Sullivan would be furious at Kerry and he wouldn't care one whit if Dick and Lynne Cheney were upset with Kerry. Because it is Kerry's actions that are at issue, not the Cheneys' reactions. So what did Kerry do? He tried to score political points by using the status — for want of a better word — of his opponents' family. He claimed to know the mind of someone else's child as a way to hurt the parents. It's the ultimate wedge issue, trying to divide or ridicule a family because of an abstract or partisan political point. Bill Safire says that it was all premeditated. Bob Novak's reporting seems to indicate it was off-the-cuff. I suspect that it was Kerry off-the-cuff — which is the more damning interpretation if you ask me. If you actually watch the tape of Kerry's comments, you can see he's struggling to say something profound. You can tell that he was on the defensive — as he was on all the values questions — and, I think, you can tell that he was searching for a way to put Bush on the defensive instead. That was clearly John Edwards's intention when he mentioned Mary Cheney in the vice-presidential debate. All of the attention, by the way, to Cheney's graciousness in response to Edwards also misses the point. Cheney's motives for taking the high road were surely political. But Cheney's feelings and motives don't change the objective fact of the Kerry camp's intent. I cringed when Kerry explained, "We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as." Others in the room groaned. But it was obvious to everyone that Kerry was searching to score points, to twist the knife, to use Mary Cheney as a cudgel. The fact that Kerry used Mary's homosexuality was secondary. Gay rights, gay marriage, etc. — all of that is incidental to the fact that Kerry relished the opportunity to use Mary Cheney. I'm no huge poll watcher, but the polls clearly show that most Americans "got it." Kerry can't resist the gravitational pull of a political opportunity. Indeed, as Brit Hume noted on Fox News Sunday and as I've written before, I think this goes further in explaining Kerry's flip-flops than anything else. He has terrible political instincts. And I don't think anyone can deny that his comments were driven by political instinct and not the "integrity, integrity, integrity" he claims his mother drilled into him. When trying to explain why it was wrong, people have offered hypotheticals of Kerry mentioning an alcoholic or drug addict in his opponents' family. Kerry's defenders take immediate offense at the suggestion that being gay is like being a drug addict. We can discuss all that another day. But what if George W. Bush had said "divorce is a difficult issue. On one hand we all think society is healthier when marriages are healthier. On the other hand, we understand that good and decent people sometimes have irreconcilable differences. I'm sure if you asked John Kerry's first wife, she would tell you that there are no easy answers..." Or if he had said, "I'm sure if you asked John Kerry's lovely daughters whether it was easy for them to cope with their parents' divorce..." Or what if Bush had said, "America is a land of great opportunity for immigrants. I'm sure John Kerry's second wife Teresa, who was born in Africa, would agree..." In any of those scenarios, I guarantee you that "getting it" would not have been a problem for the press. In my opinion Kerry didn't do anything wrong. He didn't call her a bloodthirsty demon but I can see people considering her being mentioned inappropiate or unnecessary. |
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| Oct 19th, 2004 04:52 AM | |||
| FS |
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| Oct 19th, 2004 01:51 AM | |||
| Ricky Glue |
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| Oct 19th, 2004 12:22 AM | |||
| Anonymous |
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It's a shame that we can't get married in this country 
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| Oct 19th, 2004 12:08 AM | |||
| Brandon |
I'll let Andy Sullivan say it for me: We've been inundated these past few days by Republicans bemoaning John Kerry's alleged gay-baiting in this campaign. Bob Novak, Bill Kristol, Bill Safire (whose appalling column today I've just done fisking), the entire NRO crew, and on and on. They've referred to Kerry's comments in clear and bold terms: "indecent," "shameless," "outrageous." I have a simple question. Does anyone have a single leading Republican voice objecting to Republican Senate candidate Jim DeMint's statement that gays should be barred from teaching in public schools? Has any leading conservative criticized the RNC flier claiming that a vote for Kerry would mean banning the Bible and forcing gay marriage on the entire country? Has any leading conservative columnist criticized some of the anti-marriage state amendments because of their vast scope and banning of any protections for gay couples? I noticed that Jay Nordlinger did object to Alan Keyes' description of Mary Cheney as a selfish hedonist. But did Kristol? Or anyone else? The Cheneys ignored it. I'm just trying to be fair here. I'm relieved that Bill Kristol cares so deeply about not demonizing gays. I'd just like to hear of a single instance in which he has said such a thing before. That would get to the core of his sincerity, would it not? Or his sickeningly shameless opportunism. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 06:20 PM | |||
| FS |
I would like to say that I don't find it fair to draw Mary Cheney into the public debate or turn her into the figurehead of an issue. It's not her fault her father's a vampiric demon who drinks dollars, and happens to be comedy sidekick to the man who rules the world. But the way the Republicans are responding is just hilarious. I bet none of these 'outraged' people could even put into words what they're getting pissed off about. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 05:34 PM | |||
| Stabby |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:33 PM | |||
| HNICPantitude | I'm referring to prioritization, not life-paths. | ||
| Oct 18th, 2004 04:28 PM | |||
| sspadowsky |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:28 PM | |||
| kellychaos |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:24 PM | |||
| Preechr |
It's political gaming on both ends. Kerry & Edwards smile and say "How nice it is that you have a GAY GAY duaghter, Mr. I'm-OK-with-Shitting-On-Gays" in a nice way after a REPUBLICAN (Alan Keyes) candidate gets away with personally insulting Mary Cheney, followed by this horsecrap. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:22 PM | |||
| HNICPantitude | The argument falls on states rights vs. a federal constitutional amendment, which by the way, I oppose - so dont jump on my back. The point I'm making is that is that the democrat's approach was, as usual, tasteless. | ||
| Oct 18th, 2004 04:20 PM | |||
| FS |
ha! ha! ha! @ this. I love that the whole fact they're upset is about is that he mentioned her. As if it would only be polite to pretend she doesn't exist. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:17 PM | |||
| Preechr |
Not all gay people support marriage equality, surprisingly enough. I'm not saying that Mary falls into that category, but just that it's not as universal even among gays as most people assume. Either way, I'm pretty sure Mary has parsed out her father's decision and supports him AS WELL AS his boss... I mean, campaigning for Cheney is pretty much campaigning for Bush, no? Cheney has mentioned it, but only a couple of times and not on TV, so as to make it a non-issue: something he's not hiding from but is private and thus not "fair game." |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 04:01 PM | |||
| glowbelly |
by forcing her to make that kind of decision in the first place. i wonder who your daughter would pick given the same situation? daddy or herself? |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 03:04 PM | |||
| HNICPantitude | How is it he put his political career ahead of his daughter, who actively campaigns FOR HIM? | ||
| Oct 18th, 2004 03:01 PM | |||
| glowbelly |
 it isn't the democrats who want to change the constitution to declare who is allowed to love each other and who isn't. silly man. it also isn't the democrats who pander to crazy, right wing conservative christians and use stupid shit like gay marriage to SPLIT A POPULATION ON THE PREMISES OF HATE. mary cheney has been gay for a long, long time. i didn't know it until recently and this was before i heard it mentioned by any of the candidates. i'm glad i know now. i'm glad to know that this woman's father is willing to put his political career before the well being of his own daughter. it makes it a whole hell of a lot easier for me to decide who i am going to vote for on nov 2. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 02:55 PM | |||
| HNICPantitude | Number one - it was inappropriate to be spoken of in the format it was. Kerry's comment was not the comment that irritated Republicans the most. It was Edwards wife claiming Cheyney's wife and he must be "ashamed" of their daughter being a lesbian. Is that the case? Dick Cheyney has mentioned it in public more than once. It was a cheap and devicive shot, and as irresponsible and off-point as the democrats themselves. It solves nothing. It was merely more hatred, which is all democrats of the modern day seem capable of. | ||
| Oct 18th, 2004 02:49 PM | |||
| kahljorn |
I was thinking about gay marriage the other night.... Satanists can legally get married, as long as they are man and woman. So can buddhists, muslims, hindus, shamans, atheists and stupid scientists like the majority of the people in here. How is that protecting marriage? A union before God in people who don't even believe in God. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 02:25 PM | |||
| Anonymous |
Kerry referenced her to illustrate the differences in the President and Vice Presidents' views on gay marriage and policy. You notice that out of all the people crying about this, Mary Cheney is not one of them. For them to cry about how 'outrageous' mentioning a specific person in regard to homosexuality is just continues to alienate gays and push the gay & lesbian community further away from their platform. You'd think Kerry had called her a terrorist or something. |
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| Oct 18th, 2004 02:17 PM | |||
| Immortal Goat | Moronic Republicans and moronic Democrats should never get together. Kerry could have referenced someone else, and the entire republican party could use their time for more useful activities. Like killing themselves. | ||
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