Thursday, October 14, 2004

Tempe Talk

Strangely enough, I feel like I have no comments on the third debate. I agree with one of Wonkette's observations: the whole thing just got booooring. Sure, W. stretched the truth a lot and dodged questions like you wouldn't believe... but then so did Kerry. No one really touched upon a lot of new ground and after a while, I was ready to just call it a night. Didn't help that I had been putting in back-to-back-to-back 10-hour days in the office and I was just plain tuckered.

My fave bit of scuttlebutt about the debates now is how Lynne Cheney is apparently livid over the fact that John Kerry dared mention in the debate the fact that she and the Veep have a lesbian daughter. Gasp! The shock! The horror!

Apparently it was okay for Gwen Ifill to ask the question of the Veep himself in the VP debate. Apparently it's okay for W. to want to write Mary and her partner out of the Constitution, because the Veep "just supports the President." Apparently it's okay for Republicans like Alan Keyes to go around saying that lesbians are "selfish hedonists" and that if he had a gay daughter, he'd tell her so. But for John Kerry to say that the Cheneys have a gay daughter who "is just being what she was born as" is revolting.

Someone bring these people into the 21st century already.

2 comments:

Dennis! said...

Hey Dustin,

Hope you read that story I directed you to. I thought you'd get a kick out of it.

I think you missed my point about the Kerry's talking about the VP's lesbian daughter Mary. BC04 have not hesitated to trot her out as a "we're so tolerant" centerpiece in this campaign before unleashing on America the virtiol that is the Federal Marriage Amendment. She's become a piece of evidence like everything else in this race. The VP himself referred to her in his debate; VP and Ms. VP referred to her in nationally publicized public comments; she and her partner took the stage after the VP debate to show what a great and supporting family they all are, lesbian or not. Not talking about her is like allowing Bush to talk about how he's done wonders for the economy then saying Kerry would be insulting if he tried to mention the economy.

Yes, Kerry's talking about her was political and calculated to get some mileage. That doesn't make her off limits.

And when your own party is busy shutting the door on gay civil rights and doing things like calling your daughter (though not by name) a "selfish hedonist", while John Kerry says she's "being who she is," who do you think the Cheneys should be taking umbrage with?

Matthew said...

Hey, Dennis! How's it going?

Just wanted to say that I completely agree with you re: Kerry's Mary Cheney remarks. Bush & Co. are hypocrites for trying to get any indignant mileage out of this.

Keep up the good blogging!