Safire addresses the Mary Cheney "issue"....

[kentuck]

Safire thinks it is "sleazy" because it was purposeful to confuse and dismay Bush supporters who believe same-sex marriage is wrong. He would have preferred that Kerry and Edwards said nothing and let the "non-sleazy" Republicans make an issue of it just before the election. They may still try but it is going to be much more difficult for them. They hate it when someone opts their "sleaze".
=====================================================================

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/opinion/18safire.html?oref=login

<snip>
That this twice-delivered low blow was deliberate is indisputable. The first shot was taken by John Edwards, seizing a moderator's opening to smarmily compliment the Cheneys for loving their openly gay daughter, Mary. The vice president thanked him and yielded the remaining 80 seconds of his time; obviously it was not a diversion he was willing to prolong.

Until that moment, only political junkies knew that a member of the Cheney family serving on the campaign staff was homosexual. The vice president, to show it was no secret or anything his family was ashamed of, had referred to it briefly twice this year, but the press - respecting family privacy - had properly not made it a big deal. The percentage of voters aware of Mary Cheney's sexual orientation was tiny.

<snip>
The sleazier purpose of the Kerry-Edwards spotlight on Mary Cheney is to confuse and dismay Bush supporters who believe that same-sex marriage is wrong, to suggest that Bush is as "soft on same-sex" as Kerry is, and thereby to reduce a Bush core constituency's eagerness to go to the polls.

The pro-Kerry columnist Margaret Carlson put her finger on it, finding that Kerry and Edwards "realize that discussing Mary Cheney is a no-lose proposition: It highlights the hypocrisy of the Bush-Cheney position to Democrats while simultaneously alerting evangelicals to the fact that the Cheneys have an actual gay person in their household whom they apparently aren't trying to convert or cure." (Italics mine.)

....more

[sandnsea]

1. Just stop posting this

Please, our troops rejected a suicide mission in order to not deliver watered down fuel in unprotected trucks. Where'd the $87 billion go? Come on people, THAT is the story.

[Carla in Ca]

11. I posted a thread

tonight reminding everyone we have just a few weeks before the election, we need to focus on that. We need to email, write letters, make phone calls on Iraq, deficit, jobs and the fact that we out-source for our vaccines, and now we have a shortage.

I got 2 replies.

[sandnsea]

12. Call Colorado

I posted it earlier, same thing. The thread complaining about the Colorado polls and the campaign pulling out of Colorado got more response then the thread to do something about it. I hear you. I know alot of people are working hard and come here at the end of the day to unwind. I pop in and out between phone calls. I just don't know how people can focus on silliness when there's so much else to do.

[Carla in Ca]

16. I agree, but not to sound like I don't appreciate the variety of topics

It is just so close to 'crunch time'.
This is a great community of people, all with one goal in mind. I just know, in the end, we will all have done our part to win.


Edit-Here is the thread I started

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1098750&mesg_id=1098750>

[girl gone mad]

2. Why is it proper for the press not to make a big deal of it?

It shows the Republicans hypocrisy. On this, as on most other issues, it's okay for them but not for others.

[kentuck]

3. Yes, it is in the NYTimes...

We should expose the hypocrisy of people like William Safire.

[Erika]

4. Mary Cheney Is A Bitch

You like all the cheney/Bush kids fighting in Bushco's war?

[The Magistrate]

5. How It Is A 'Low Blow' Escapes Me, My Blue-Grass Friend

Cheney is a leading stalwart of the Republican Party, which has chosen to fan hatred of gays in order to rouse up its base of bigots to storm the polls. Those bigots deserve to know that a leading champion of their party has raised up one of those degenerates they so hate, and has not disowned her, institutionalized her, or stoned her to death, but instead pays her a sizeable sum to work for his campaign and try and recruit gays to vote Republican....

"Republicanism is a character flaw."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[kentuck]

6. Exactly right, Sir.....

These bigots deserve to know....and that seems to be what Safire finds so "sleazy"...

[The Magistrate]

7. Safire Is A Pustule, My Friend

If he were an honest man, he would consider it sleazy both to conceal such a thing from an honest and forthright bigot, and to pitch a political campaign on an appeal to bigotry. But he is a Republican, and that is an infallible indicator of a deeply flawed character....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[kentuck]

8. Quite right, Sir...

an excellent examination.

[geek tragedy]

9. My sympathy for a Quisling like Mary Cheney is nil.

If the cavepeople of the Christian right are going to desert the Repugs because the truth is revealed, good.

If the Repubs want to whine about an attempt to suppress the bigoted part of their base, the response is simple: Get a new base.

[The Magistrate]

10. Indeed, Mr. Tragedy

Without racist and religious bigots, the crony capitalists of the plutocratic kleptocracy would be left naked at the polls. In the late sixties, the Republican Party made a concious choice to cultivate the bigot vote, and anyone who does not understand that can have no comprehension of our country's politics over the last several decades. It is not about ideas, it is not about policies: it is about the number of people who surrender their souls to bigotry, and the reptiles who harvest them.

"I want you to know, boys and girls, that there are some people in this world who do not love their fellow men, and I hate people like that."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[geek tragedy]

13. Gays are the new blacks.

The cavepeople have just found a new group they can hate in public.

Hate is the glue that keeps the Republican party together.

[The Magistrate]

14. That Is It In A Nut-Shell, Sir

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[LittleClarkie]

15. Indeed, I will have to respectfully disagree with Sen. Kerry

And say that she is NOT born as God made her, but instead as she was HATCHED like the rest of her family.

(cue Godzilla soundeffect)