A Cheap and Tawdry Political Trick

October 16, 2004

Kudos to Lynne Cheney for telling it like it is: that John Kerry is lower than snake oil for pulling this stunt of invoking Mary Cheney’s homosexuality. But to me, even much more reprehensible was Elizabeth Edwards’ defiant, unrepentant after-shot at Lynne Cheney this morning, saying:

It makes me really sad that that’s Lynne’s response. I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter’s sexual preferences that I’m certain makes her daughter uncomfortable. That makes me very sad on a personal level.

Oh yes, these compassionate libs can really feel people’s pain, can’t they. What a presumptuous, offensive, rude, insenstive, and frankly, stupid thing to say. Lynne Cheney’s reaction doesn’t bespeak of her shame, but her outrage that Kerry and Elizabeth’s husband could stoop so low, so transparently low. And you’ll never convince me in a million years that the patronizing Mrs. Edwards is “sad,” muchless, “very sad on a personal level.” But she is getting the jargon down; she sounds a little bit like old Tom Daschle.

And there’s more. Did you hear what Kerry campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill said about this in a post-debate interview? She said:

There are a lot of questions here about gay marriage and she is someone who’s a major figure in the campaign. I think it’s fair game.
And I heard some other lib say, similarly, that Mary Cheney is a public figure so she’s fair game. Listen, she is not a public figure in the sense that she placed herself in the vortex of the public arena. She didn’t ask for this attention. She had no say in her father’s decision to run for office or her mother’s high profile. And her sexual orientation is completely irrelevant to the issues in this campaign. And these Dems who want to force it to become an issue are shamefully exploitive and uncaring people.

I can’t believe these people on the Dem side who would be president and vice president have so little class as to behave this way. This is not the way decent people behave. It’s the way unscrupulous people conduct themselves. You would think that when confronted with this, the Kerrys and Edwards would put their tails between their legs and ask humbly for the Cheneys’ forgiveness.

But to them, apparently all’s fair in war and this is a war and Mary Cheney is mere collateral damage. You’d think that these men’s spouses — their proverbial better halves, the traditionally civilizing influences — would have a softening effect and bring them to their senses. But Mrs. Edwards and certainly Mrs. Heinz-Kerry seem to have a decidedly coarsening effect. Can you imagine them as First and Second ladies? I’m really surprised with Mrs. Edwards, by the way. I had no idea she would act like this.

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