Please Mary, your book is as bad as your hairstyle. Jeez, you even look like a republican. You are as genuine as one of your father's speeches. Do mankind a favor, quit writing and take up knitting like a good little republican lesbian.
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Mary is a wonderful wife! That book advance has allowed me to stay home an renovate our new million dollar house. I bake cookies and wait for Mary to get home from AOL and then we watch FOX news together before we engage in the love that dares not speak it name.
You people are all jealous! Mary is a stud!
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Its the sub title 'A Daughters Chronicle of Political Life' that tells you what the book is really all about. And to be honest the first two thirds of the book are informative as far as giving insight into what its like to become involved in politics at the local or state level and then on a national level. Even the stories of how unglamorous the lodgings can be, bed bugs included are entertaining.
But its Chapter 13 thru 18 that bothered me the most. Even the title of Chapter 13 Freedom Means Freedom for Everyone, suggested to me that finally, the author would come out full guns blazing on how unfair and in my opinion unconstitutional the Bush Cheney administration are when it comes to Freedom for All not just heterosexuals or Christians. Sadly I am very disappointed. She starts the chapter out by sharing how GWBush in his January 20, 2004 State of the Union address he had singled out male and female and the whole Federal Marriage Amendment, and how she declined to attend the speech because as a lesbian she didn't want to be seen as agreeing with the idea.
She even writes on page 174 'There's a historical analogy I like to use. The Fourteenth Amendment, which was introduced in 1866 and ratified in 1868, defined all persons born or naturalized in the United States as citizens, gave federal protection to individual rights, and established the idea of 'equal protection'. It also said that the number of representatives apportioned to a state would be based upon the number of male citizens allowed to vote in that state. Prior to this, the word male did not appear in the Constitution, meaning that although women had few rights in the society at the time, they were not explicitly denied them in the Constitution. Women could look to our founding document as one that included them, even if society itself did not, and they could hope that one day society would understand that equality is a concept applicable to all human beings'.
She then notes on page 177 'It also helped that I only heard one high-ranking Republican strategist complain that the campaign needed to 'fix' Dad's position on the marriage amendment and bring it back in line with the president's'. She then shares how one man who happened to be gay, had spoken to her because some gay activists had threatened to out gays and lesbians in the administration. She had told him to tell his Supervisor and then she spoke with her Dad who when he heard the story remarked 'That's just unacceptable. I want you to go back and tell this person that if anyone ---I don't care who it is --- if anyone gives him trouble, he is to come see me and I'll take care of it'.
Now this is all well and good, but deep down it reminds me of the slave who worked his way up the 'yes sir' chain to make it into the masters house, while the rest of his people were left to suffer in the fields doing the masters work, with none of the same privileges. Or the Jewish man who believing he could work with the Nazi's found that the only life that got save was his own, while thousands amongst him were led away to their deaths. It simply reeks of 'I got mine, screw you' mentality that is rampant amongst the privileged class here in the states.
Chapter 15 The Running Mate is nothing more than an attack on John Edwards and the fact he grew up in a family where his Dad worked in a textile mill and then Mr. Edwards went on to succeed very well in law school and as a personal injury attorney. And that rather than use taxpayers money he spent millions of his own money to run for Senator. She notes on page 198 'John Edwards would use stories from his youth to try to gloss over the fact that he had become very wealthy as a trial lawyer'. Excuse me???? I listened to all his stump speeches that CNN, FOX, MSNBC etc carried and never once did he sound like he was glossing over anything. If anything he spoke of how fortunate he was, how blessed he was. And having had a great personal injury attorney for when my husband was disabled by a drunk driver I get a bit peeved when people bad mouth attorneys until they need one!!!! Guess Ms. Cheney thinks he shouldn't have discussed the death of his son Wade age 16 in 1996, because it made him sound to nice. Interestingly enough the biggest case of John Edwards legal career was a personal injury lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of an allegedly defective pool drain cover which had caused the death of a young child who bascially got sucked into the pools drain.
I mention this because another Republican former Secretary of State James Baker has been making the media rounds because his granddaugghter Virginia Graeme Baker age 7, drowned at a graduation party in June 2002, when the suction from a drain pinned her. Thus I think Ms Cheney is a hypocrite to bad mouth the work of John Edwards when his clients well could have been Republicans! Never mind that Dick Cheney has become far wealthier because of his work with Halliburten!! Heck their public tax records show that Mr Cheney in 2005 reported adjusted gross income of nearly $8.82 million, which was largely the result of exercising stock options that had been set aside in 2001 for charity. Doubt John Edwards made that much in 2005.
On page 207 Ms. Cheney rips into John Edwards and the fact that during one of the debates her Dad commented that he had never met Senator Edwards before when in fact the Senator had noted they had met at the prayer breakfast in 2001. But rather than admit the error Ms Cheney takes the low road and attacks Mrs Edwards for a remark she made to Mrs Cheney. I wont tell you what it was, but its something anyone I know Republican or Democrat might have said in good humor. Read the book at the bookstore on page 207.
Then one reads how aghast the Cheneys were in regard to what Kerry and Edwards said in regard to gays and lesbians and alas Mary Cheney. Comments I didn't find at all bad, since I expect Democrats to be for equal rights for ALL people, and not two faced elitists who only want equal rights for themselves and those they consider friends.
The last chapter is basically a slam piece on the New York Times and anyone who doesn't agree with the administration. Which again reduces this book to a shallow, whiny, we are better than you piece.
This could have been a good book, but for this reader I came away wondering how different life will be once Ms. Cheney is out of the protective world she lives in, and back in the real world where gay bashing is a reality and her next employer can fire her because she's gay, and doesn't have her Daddy to run to for big bully protection. I hope she gets her just dessert.
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