Cheney’s kid is ‘fair game’?

The incredible gaffe that Kerry made in Wednesday’s debate is indisputable. Kerry victimized the daughter of Vice President and Mrs. Cheney for his own political opportunity of trying to “win” a question in a political debate. Yet the Kerry campaign and surrogates were not content to let it rest there.

Throughout the following day, Kerry spokespersons and even the candidate himself were on the record trying to swoosh away criticism with even more insensitive remarks further increasing the Cheney daughter’s presence in the media and making her sex life the subject of their speculations.

I wrote about this at length on my blog on Thursday and took dozens of calls on it on my show. Blogger Andrew Sullivan mentioned it, but disagreed with my assessment. He argues that the only offense committed during the exchange is the mindset that might be distressed by Kerry’s rogue use of the woman’s sex life. Some of Sullivan’s readers wrote, even threatened me for coming to the Cheney daughter’s defense. Some threatened bodily harm, some accused me of bigotry.

So let’s look at it from an opposite dynamic. What if President Bush had been asked about abstinence and whether or not he believed it to work in preventing teenage pregnancy? Suppose that John Edwards teenage daughter had once been pregnant or was the unwed mother of a child. Suppose that in making the case that abstinence would work, he said to the moderator that it would have worked specifically in Edwards’ daughter’s situation.

In both scenarios, the information being given out about the other’s daughter would be personal – deeply personal. Both scenarios might have caused some degree of emotion in the hearts of the parents. And in a “secular state,” both situations would have been looked at under law as situations where morality or judgment should not be attached. Both scenarios might even have a certain degree of public awareness attached to them. But it would be wrong for the president to point to that example as a wise way of illustrating his point.

There would not be necessarily any “shame” or even “condemnation” in the relationship between the parents of each girl and the daughter. (Do all parents wish their kids sometimes made different choices in life? Absolutely – but you never write them off because they don’t.)

John Kerry could have easily cited true public figures who advertise their homosexual activities and behavior openly. He chose instead to put words in the mouth of a daughter who did not have the stage and would not be given a chance to respond.

Lynne Cheney was right to label what Kerry had done as wrong. It is a mother’s instinct to protect their young. And since Kerry was reaching into the daughter’s sex life – to slosh around for his political benefit a point that he hoped to win a debate with – Mrs. Cheney was also right to object to the use of her daughter’s private issues of identity for his benefit.

But Mrs. Edwards on ABC News on Thursday morning still could not leave well enough alone:

I think that [Mrs. Cheney’s complaint] indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter’s sexual preferences.

What business is it to Mrs. Edwards if Mrs. Cheney jumps up to defend her daughter’s right to not have her love life on public display? And even if Mrs. Cheney does not agree with her daughter’s choice for her sexual or romantic relationships, it is not the equivalent to being “ashamed” of her daughter. To even go down this line of thinking makes me truly question Mrs. Edwards own understanding of what raising children means.

Nonetheless, John Kerry, John Edwards, Mary Beth Cahill and Elizabeth Edwards have all implied or stated publicly since the debate that the Cheney’s daughter is “fair game.”

Well it’s nice to see that the ticket which claims to be for the advancement of the feminist ideals has such low opinions of women that they victimize one – who can not reply – as a talking point.

Thus it makes it understandable why Vice President Cheney finally said this late Thursday:

You saw a man who will say and do anything in order to get elected. And I am not speaking just as a father here, though I am a pretty angry father, but as a citizen.

I would be too.