First, a bit of important business. If you have not seen Jon Stewart on Crossfire, I can't recommend strongly enough that you go and watch it. It continues to support what I've suspected for the past year - Jon Stewart is Very Important, and on his way to becoming Very, Very, Very Important.
Memo to everyone still discussing the Mary Cheney thing: YOU ARE DUMB.
It's been five days. Let it go. Stop examining it. Stop yelling about it. She's here, she's queer, her last name's Cheney, and she is inevitably going to be used as a ticking time-bomb volleyball in high-stakes politics. So get used to it.
TO THE LEFT: I know we have to stridently repeat our own talking-point defenses in today's world, but come on. Ofcourse Kerry name-dropping Mary The Lesbian Cheney in the last debate was a political maneuver. Just like Edwards mentioning it in the VP debate was. It was a cheap ploy to associate Dick Cheney with all the uncomfortable feelings Bush supporters have about homosexuals in general, and lesbians in particular.
It wasn't done by accident. It wasn't done to praise the Cheneys' childrearing abilities. It was a blatant political maneuver. And you should be INCREDIBLY FUCKING HAPPY for it, because it means that, at least every once in a while, Kerry and Edwards aren't trying to win this election on their merits as leaders of the free world. Thank fuck. Because only about 5% of the people pulling the lever on 11/2 are going to vote based on who they think will be the most effective leader of the free world.
The rest are going to go with blind party loyalty, the incompetence of the incumbent, who looks better in a short-sleeve shirt, who they think has a nicer bulge, whatever. Maybe a couple of dozen people stay home that day 'cause they're not voting for nobody who made their daughter queer. I'll take that. Hell, it's even true that she IS a lesbian, so the best part is, it's all still completely defensible.
Hell, the ploy wouldn't even have a chance in the first place if the right hasn't spent a big chunk of its entire history, and especially the past year, specifically courting people who think lesbians are "icky". Most of whom probably have "Girl On Girl IV" under their mattress anyway.
If it were up to me, we'd take full advantage of the Ashcroft Justice Department's steamrolling of civil rights and privacy, and have a national vote on gay marriage. And while everyone's out at the polls, we have law enforcement search their homes under the Patriot Act. And if we find anything in your home that features two women getting it on, and you voted "no" on gay marriage, your vote gets shredded by Voters Outreach of America*. The gay marriage issue would then pass overwhelmingly by a ten to one margin.
TO THE RIGHT: You can stop pretending now. You know as well as we do that all the Official Outrage over Kerry's comment is just as calculated and fake as Kerry's own comment. Sure, when it's time to appear all compassionate and moderate, you love to drop Mary Cheney's name. Plus she's on your frigging campaign payroll, which means that she's not some strange, closeted lesbian hermit who spends her days poking around a damp cave. She's in the thick of this, and using loaded, inaccurate words like "outing" just make you sound shrill.
It ALSO means there's some good, old-fashioned nepotism going in in the Bush-Cheney campaign, but hell, these days, nepotism seems like a quaint reminder of days long past, like bow ties, or Quaker Oats. Like meatloaf and mashed potatoes, nepotisim is Comfort Corruption. No more of that messy "deferred compensation from Halliburton", "no-bid contract" crap. "He hired his daughter to a high-profile paid position in his re-election campaign" is the kind of thing we can settle snugly into on a cold autumn evening.
Cheney and the rest of the right has settled on a new talking point, that Kerry "will say anything to get elected". Hooray! Finally, we have confirmation that we have a complete set of four for the election. I'd hate for Kerry to be the only one left out of that club, wouldn't you? You know what happenes to politicians who refuse to say anything in order to get elected? They lose.
*If you don't know, Google it up. It's fraudtacular!