I don't get it. Why is it sleazy? She is gay. Everyone knows that, it is no big deal.
It wasn't relevant. She's not the subject. She is being brought up for other reasons.
What if W starting expounding upon the great affliction in the impoverished community – obesity – and used Mrs. Edwards as an example.
Everyone knows she is right? Would that be sleazy?
The DEMs think it help them for two reasons:
1) drives a wedge between Bush and Cheney on the constitution amendment issue.
2) The news will keep Evangelicals away (or ones that they think didn't know about Mary Cheney's lifestyle). Similar to DWI charge for Bush.
"Why is it sleazy?"
1. He planned to bring HER specifically up in the debate -- as did Edwards -- for a political effect. [And a personal sucker-punch to the v.p.]
2. If he merely wanted to suggest that people with homosexual tendencies view that as their natural condition, why not pick someone HE actually knows on a close basis, and would have believable reason to actually know that is what the person thinks? One of HIS relatives? [Oh, he doesn't know any gays?? What about Barney Frank?]
3. I.E. why not McGreevey?? The courageous out-comer of the Democratic Party?? Oh, that would bring up a Democratic embarrassment; better to hang the hypothetical he is positing on a woman, someone's daughter, who just HAPPENS to be, coincidentally, the daughter of the Vice President!
4. No one is supposed to know what a person does in the privacy of his/her home. That is why it is called privacy. So exactly WHY bring it up with a person's name, without their specific permission and advocacy? If SHE wants to make a political cause out of it, that is one thing; that does not make it OK for OTHERS to USE her unless she is on the stage with him -- which she definitely is not, as she is supporting Bush.
5. Just because something is "general knowledge" about a person, does not give everyone else lee-way to talk about it. Esp. since the likely political effect was to besmirch HER repuatation [and by inference that of her father and by inference that of the President] in the eyes of a segmant of the population, as was the Democrats political calculation and intention. Hence it is INTENDED detraction. The fact that the Dems misapprehend the reaction of Christian voters, BTW, does not make it less offensive.
Should I go on??
Sleaze through and through . . .
You really don't know? Didn' yo mama learn you no manners?
It is called manners, and for those who have been brought with them, Kerry revealed what an ill-bred cad he is. This is a huge deal for the 69% of the country with them, a president must know how to behave.
You never ever talk negatively about somebody's else's child without first going to the family and asking permision or bring up something that the parents have not brought up themselves about their own child in a conversation especially if it is to hold the family up to some type of scorn....Period. To do it for political gain shows him in polite society to be beneath contempt.
The only thing suprising are the very few who do not see it....I wonder about their age.
Yes but its nobodys business but the Cheney's. No one should have the sex life of their children discussed on national television.
It's sleazy because it's using the private life of your opponent's family for your own political gain. Mary Cheney may in fact agree with the gist of Kerry's argument that homosexuality is not a choice, but I strongly doubt that she would appreciate and condone the fact that he's using her sexual orientation in a subtle bid to damage the Bush/Cheney campaign. It's akin to a situation where the Bushes have a quadraplegic son and Kerry says "If you ask [name of the son] about stem cell research, I think he'll tell you that he supports it and disagrees with his father's position."
Congratulations your one of the 33%!
The objection is to the violation of political tradition in spotlighting a family member.
Are you lost? DU is to the left. Any
freeper who does not know that answer to your simplistic question does not merit the title "FReeper." And by the way, don't give any candidate youy like election advice..
Let's look at part (the first three paragraphs of his answer), then I have a point:
KERRY: 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.
I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
And I've met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them.
~snip~
Now, most of us deduce he was referring to Gov. McGreevey in the last part I've excerpted here. Now, ask yourself why Kerry didn't name names there. Then maybe you can see the big deal.
It was sleazy because Mary is not running for public office. She has her own life, and though it's not known whether or not her parents approve of her lifestyle choice, they love her and don't particularly want her personal business spread all over the newspapers. She has been working for her father's re-election, but doesn't trumpet her lifestyle in that work.
Kerry/Edwards assume that Christians are bigots and that if we all know that Cheney's daughter is homosexual, we probably won't vote for him because we don't approve of that lifestyle. He's wrong on both counts, and will discover just HOW wrong he is on election day. Far from keeping Christians from going to the polls, this may make them vote in greater numbers to assure that someone so ugly and callous never makes it to the White House.
I don't get it. Why is it sleazy? She is gay. Everyone knows that, it is no big deal.
Kerry deliberately and with malice aforethought dragged the child of an opponent into the mud of the political arena hoping to capitalize on it (= to try to get votes). That's sleazy.
Mary Cheney has chosen to keep herself and her sexuality out of the public. Other gays have set up a website called "Dear Mary" wherein gay activists can lobby to Mary, to lobby to Dick, to support gay marriage rights. The gay community sees her as their ticket to matrimony. Mary Cheney has refused to be used like this. She puts aside her personal interests and votes on national issues (and that, IMO, is what is driving the left nuts.) To take an extremely private person like this and "name drop" (which is something Kerry has been doing all three debates) is downright tasteless.
Do you really believe Edwards or Kerry brought the issue of Mary Cheney's sexual preferences out of respect for a candidate's child? Do you really believe they did not have an agenda? Do you really believe that Mary is the only gay person they know which they could use as an example? Do you really believe that in the midst of their constant hate-Bush/Cheney rhetoric - they would suddenly have a "nice" moment?
"I don't get it. Why is it sleazy? She is gay. Everyone knows that, it is no big deal."
Well for one, I don't think it is respectful to mention another candidates family member for political purposes. I also don't think it is his position to tell the nation that it was not a choice for her when he doesn't know for sure if it was or not.