"John Kerry, Gay-Baiter
Last week we noted that John Edwards, during the vice presidential debate, had mentioned that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter, and we wondered if Edwards was playing to antigay prejudice. Last night, in his final debate with President Bush, John Kerry did the same thing. While Edwards framed his remark as a compliment to the vice president's family, Kerry's mention was entirely gratuitous, leaving little doubt that, as Mickey Kaus (one of the few commentators who also called Edwards on this) puts it, there is "some Machiavellian strategy behind the Democratic urge to keep bringing this up."
Here's what Kerry said, in response to a question from moderator Bob Schieffer about same-sex marriage: 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."
The Associated Press reports that Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, expressed her outrage while campaigning near Pittsburgh: "Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man," she said. "Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."
Blogger Edward Morrissey has an apt analogy:
"It would be equivalent to Bush using Julia Thorne, Kerry's ex-wife, to refute Kerry's insistence that he is a practicing Catholic and that Kerry respects families. If Bush were to bring up Kerry's annulment . . . he would rightly be blasted by Democrats as a nosy busybody engaging in smear tactics. Why are Democrats so silent now, and why do people like Steve Fisher from the Human Rights Campaign (a gay activist group) rationalize the objectification of Mary Cheney?"
Hanoi John Kerry's a PUNK...MUD
Great resource, Taranto's "Best of the Web Today." Thanks!
Bump