What Attack?
In the third Presidential debate, John Kerry said this:
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.
In response, Dick Cheney said:
You saw a man who will do and say anything to get elected. And I am not just speaking as a father here, although I am a pretty angry father.
Lynne Cheney said:
This is not a good man. 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.
A spokeswoman for the Bush/Cheney campaign said that Kerry is
backpedaling from what is a crass, below-the-belt political strategy to attack the vice president’s daughter.
Political trick? Attack Mary Cheney? What on earth are these people talking about?
Go read Kerry’s statement again. He says two things: one is the fact that Mary Cheney is a lesbian. This is indisputable, has been discussed many times by many different people, including her parents. It is not a trick to state the fact, since it is well-known, and it is not an attack, since being homosexual is not a bad thing. He also says that, in his opinion, she would tell you that she is who she is. This is an opinion, but it’s a pretty harmless one: he’s saying she’s herself, no more and no less. This is also not a trick, nor is it an attack.
So what on earth are the Cheneys talking about? Well, they’re trying to claim that merely bringing up Mary Cheney’s sexuality is a “trick” and an “attack” in and of itself. If this is true, why did Dick Cheney thank John Edwards for his “kind words” about Mary Cheney?
If the Cheneys want to get mad about an attack, why not direct their anger towards Alan Keyes, who infamously said that homosexuality is based on “selfish hedonism,” and that “of course” that assessment applies to Mary Cheney? That is an attack, pure and direct. It’s despicable and low, and ought to have enraged the Cheneys. But did they respond? Not at all.
(This strategy, of choosing the path of greatest political gain over the one that is actually right, is the same thing that drove Bush and Cheney to attack Iraq because they could paint it as possibly a threat while ignoring North Korea’s actual threat. This is a dangerous way to run a country or to live a life.)
So what’s really going on here? Well, it’s two weeks until the election, and the Bush/Cheney campaign has realized that they can’t let the voters actually spend their time thinking about actual political issues, because the Bush/Cheney record on those issues is so incredibly dismal that they’d lose the election without a doubt. So instead, they have to stoop to making up ridiculous, absurd, and patently false accusations in an attempt to paint Kerry as “cheap,” “tawdry,” and “crass” in the hopes that people won’t have the chance to pay attention to anything substantive until the election is over.
Who would want dishonest, manipulative jerks like this running our country?
October 16th, 2004 at 4:51 pm
Lest you think I’m only always an idiotic, right-wing kook, I also don’t understand all the fuss made over this. I can vaguely understand why some people might be unsettled by it, particularly if they see it as an attempt on Kerry’s part to erode the strong base provided by Bush’s religious supporters, but that’s more in the direction of conspiracy theory than I’m willing to go. I think the Cheneys and everyone else involved really overreacted.
I must, however, say one additional thing:
I would. And while I don’t approve of everything that Cheney and Bush do, I prefer them to the dishonest, manipulative jerks they’re running against.
October 16th, 2004 at 7:22 pm
I’d like to hear what Mary Cheney had to say about Kerry’s statement. My guess is that it isn’t something quite so negative as the statements by her parents.
Good post, Ryan.
October 17th, 2004 at 4:08 am
I’ve thought about this for a few days. I think Dick and Lynne Cheney’s reactions are within the realm of the upset reaction any parent would have about a political opponent bringing their child into a debate. It’s sort of “hands off” territory in that regard. At the same time, Mary Cheney is part of the Bush-Cheney campaign, and has been for a while, which makes it a little fuzzier about whether she’s fair game for the other side to use.
The liberal side does have a point when it talks about the reaction having sounded overly defensive, overly outraged, from the beginning. One dailykos poster went into an analysis of the words “cheap and tawdry” (as opposed to other negative adjectives that didn’t have a connotation of sleazy sexuality). I grant that Dick and Lynne Cheney’s reaction as parents was natural and appropriate, but all of the other pundits and so on who are yelling are upset in a different way. There is something to be said for the view that this is only a horrible tactic and a smear (or whatever it is supposed to be) if you think homosexuality is wrong, and that mentioning someone’s sexuality is a bad thing.
I was annoyed by one op-ed piece I read that described John Kerry has having grinned as he mentioned Mary Cheney, which is not at all the case. He spoke very slowly and carefully and soberly. However, this is also what makes me conclude that this was an extremely deliberate move on Kerry’s part, a political shiv that he decided to stick into the other team’s ribs right at the last question of the last debate. It punctures a particular Republican hypocrisy concerning gays and lesbians, and the most effective way to make that point was to invoke Mary Cheney. This is if you assume Kerry did it deliberately, and I think you’d have to really underestimate him in order to think he didn’t. At the same time, I think the rest of Kerry’s answer (to the “Is homosexuality a choice?”) question was direct and thoughtful.
I have come to the conclusion that it was a dirty trick, and also that the hypocrisy needed to be punctured. I don’t think anybody’s hands are quite clean.
October 18th, 2004 at 10:21 am
In reality, it’s the Cheneys who are insulting their daughter. Kerry’s comment can only be considered an attack if homosexuality is considered something negative.
October 29th, 2004 at 10:11 am
Right on, Brian. The response of the Cheneys reveals their unresolved problems with their daughter’s homosexuality. It even reveals, to me, the incompatibility of absolutism with a pluralistic population and thus the ideological tension that will never relax until either Christianity or atheism is wiped out.
November 2nd, 2004 at 7:46 pm
“I think Dick and Lynne Cheney’s reactions are within the realm of the upset reaction any parent would have about a political opponent bringing their child into a debate. ”
JRW, Mary Cheney has actively and conspicuously campaigned for her father. She’s an adult and she chose to involve herself in the campaign. She brought herself into the campaign. Just like her mother.