THIS MODERN WORLD

The only cheap and tawdry political trick here is pretending that John Kerry’s mention of Mary Cheney was somehow a cheap and tawdry trick. It’s just something for conservatives to pretend to be outraged by. Mary Cheney has been out for a long time. Kerry’s remark was simply a way of humanizing the question — pointing out that gayness is not a liberal or conservative issue, any more than skin color or gender. Anyone can be gay — even the daughter of the Republican Vice President. This is only cause for outrage, as I mentioned before, if you think homosexuality is cause for shame. But this is how it’s going to be for the next couple of weeks. If John Kerry says “have a nice day,” Republicans will accuse him of disrespecting night shift workers.

They know they’re losing, and they’re desperate.

This is where it starts getting really stupid.

MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa., Oct. 13 — Lynne V. Cheney, wife of Vice President Cheney, accused John F. Kerry on Wednesday night of “a cheap and tawdry political trick” and said he “is not a good man” after he brought up their daughter’s homosexuality at the final presidential debate.

Mary Cheney, one of the vice president’s two daughters and an official of the Bush-Cheney campaign, has been open about her lesbian status. The candidates were asked if they believe homosexuality is a choice, and President Bush did not mention Mary Cheney. Then Kerry said, “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.”

That’s only a “tawdry political trick” if you think that homosexuality is something to be ashamed of.

You’d expect better from the author of this timeless prose:

Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl.

(More here.)

From the very first question: will we ever have a world as safe as the world we grew up in? You know, the world in which schoolchildren practiced “duck and cover” drills as a response to the threat of complete global annihilation? Yeah, that world was really safe, Bob. If only we could be that safe again.

Aside from the terrible moderator: did Bush’s people tell him that what the American people really want to see in a president is a sniggering frat boy?

Paula Zahn is polling CNN viewers about it. Go tell her what you think it was.

Kos has much more on that story I mentioned a few posts back. Predictably, it turns not to be limited to Las Vegas. This is a huge, huge scandal, and I hope it’s one of those stories that the blogs focus on until the mainstream media is forced to take notice.