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More hypocritical nonsense from Republicans on the Mary Cheney “outrage”
Republicans continue to embarrass themselves in the way they pile on Kerry for his Mary Cheney comment. To recap, Kerry said:
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.As I’ve pointed out before, the absurdity of the Republicans’ outrage over this remark is proved by the fact that Vice President Cheney thanked Edwards for saying pretty much the same thing at the vice presidential debate. But the “enraged” Republicans (I think a lot of their rage is phony) have an answer to this argument. As William Kristol puts it, Kerry failed
to do what his more skilled and cleverer debating partner, John Edwards, did. He was supposed to sugarcoat his use of Mary Cheney more effectively. Edwards prefaced his answer to Gwen Ifill’s same-sex marriage question in the vice-presidential debate with, “Let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can’t have anything but respect for the fact that they’re willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter; the fact that they embrace her is a wonderful thing.”So, according to Kristol, a low, disgusting, demagogic, manipulative, McCarthyite statement is perfectly ok, indeed deserving of a warm personal expression of thanks, if the speaker sugarcoats it, but if the speaker doesn’t sugarcoat it, it’s the worst thing ever said in a presidential campaign. Horrible. Repulsive. The lowest. If Cheney were being honest about his “father’s anger” at Kerry’s transgression, would he really have thanked Edwards for Edwards’s own version of that same transgression, just because Edwards had sugarcoated it? And why should we accept Kristol’s smooth assurance that Cheney “had to accept Edwards’s phony, condescending compliment” [emphasis added], as though he had no choice in the matter? Why couldn’t Cheney have said, “Senator, I don’t appreciate your bringing up my daughter in the context of this vice presidential debate. That is inappropriate in my opinion. And your referring to the love that my wife and I have for our daughter is just a way for you to introduce a private matter into this debate where it doesn’t belong.” If Cheney had said that, he would have seemed like an honorable man instead of a hypocritical sneak, and the Republicans would have a leg to stand on in their attacks on Kerry. (Or rather, if Cheney had said that, Kerry never would have dared make the later remark for which the Republicans are now excoriating him.) But of course Cheney didn’t say it, because his purpose in that situation was not to stand up for conservative principle or traditional notions of privacy, but to express his genuine thanks to Edwards for Edwards’s approving comment about his daughter, and his disdain for social conservatives, whom he pointedly refused to defend from Edwards’s smear that supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment are just seeking to “divide” the country. But Republicans and conservatives, wholly ignoring Cheney’s treasonous act toward themselves and President Bush, direct their rage at Kerry instead, almost as if to cover up the scandal of Cheney’s going over to left on the homosexual marriage issue. Seen in this light, the Republicans’ phoniness is redoubled.
And what’s most disconcerting is that this kind of orchestrated outrage, intended to deflect attention from the lies and embarrassments on one’s own side and intimidate and build up anger against the opposition, is normally the province of Democrats. What’s happening to the Republicans? Email entry |