“Outing” Mary Cheney
WILLIAM KRISTOL was right on target with his analysis of John Kerry’s venomous attack on Vice President Cheney’s daughter (“‘Fair Game,'” Oct. 25). Kerry and Edwards pretend to be champions of the common man. But they each used a young woman’s dignity as a political tool.
Kerry may now try to sugarcoat his words. But his attack on Mary Cheney speaks volumes about his character–or, more accurately, his lack of character.
Russell Miner
Forest Lake, MN
I COMPLETELY FAIL to understand William Kristol’s outrage over John Kerry’s reference to the Cheneys’ gay daughter. What did Kerry say that was insulting? Everybody already knew Mary Cheney was gay. Cheney has mentioned it himself on numerous occasions. So what’s the big deal? Besides, Mary Cheney is an adult who is working for her father’s campaign. That is “fair game” by anyone’s measure.
For that matter, did THE WEEKLY STANDARD express similar outrage when a teenage Chelsea Clinton was called a “dog” on national radio and “ugly” by a U.S. senator?
Walter Koehler
Springfield, VA
I WAS NOT CYNICAL ENOUGH to take issue with John Edwards’s reference to Mary Cheney during the vice-presidential debate. I gave Edwards the benefit of the doubt, as did the talking heads. I’m not sure if we gave Edwards the benefit of the doubt because he sugarcoated the context, or because Dick Cheney was present, or because it was the first time the inference was drawn.
After reading William Kristol’s editorial, I suspect that without the sugarcoating, Edwards may have found himself in the hot seat. John Kerry wasn’t able to pull it off because, as Kristol put it, his remark came “out of left field.” Dick Cheney was not present, the example was both unnecessary and redundant, and Kerry’s sugarcoating consisted of merely an empathetic tone (that was obviously poorly rehearsed).
In hindsight, we were duped into giving John Edwards the benefit of the doubt because of his superior calculation. Edwards was less transparent than Kerry. But he is thus even more reprehensible.
Gary Poff
Chandler, AZ
WILLIAM KRISTOL is absolutely correct. John Kerry’s comments about Mary Cheney were calculated and malicious. However, this was only one of Kerry’s two slip-ups in the final debate–which, incidentally, may be causing the recent shift toward President Bush.
Bush won the hearts of undecided women when he told the story of how he and Laura met and experienced “love at first sight.” Kerry’s response, by contrast, was clumsy. It was the first time I saw him tongue-tied as the cameras panned to a scowling Teresa Heinz Kerry sitting in the audience.
This was the last thing voters saw and heard at that debate. It may be the real reason for the shifting polls.
Scott Shoemaker
Winchester, VA
WILLIAM KRISTOL writes so eloquently what I have been thinking–and seething–about since the third debate (indeed, since the VP debate). He sums up the whole Mary Cheney incident perfectly.
John Kerry and John Edwards–not to mention Elizabeth Edwards, with her follow-up comments directed at Lynne Cheney–have established a new low for the Democratic party. They sicken me as a mother. I hope other mothers will feel the same sense of disgust at the use of someone’s daughter in such an ugly way.
Donna Dilks
Isle of Palms, SC
I AGREE WITH WILLIAM KRISTOL that Kerry should not have brought up Dick Cheney’s daughter in the debate. That being said, which is worse: that Kerry brought up Cheney’s daughter to prove a point, or that George W. Bush evaded pointed questions on homosexuality and abortion?
Why wouldn’t Bush just come out and say he feels homosexuality is an abomination, and if he got the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade (via Supreme Court appointments) he almost certainly would? Plus, wasn’t Lynne Cheney a bit over the top with her indignation, considering she agrees with Kerry’s actual statement?
If the Kerry campaign were really as underhanded as Kristol implies, they would have mentioned Mrs. Cheney’s 1981 novel Sisters, which includes a lesbian relationship.
Jason Kucharsky
Queens, NY
WILLIAM KRISTOL’S analysis of John Kerry’s scurrilous comments about Mary Cheney was right on the money. I just hope that the millions of uncommitted voters who heard the debate were as turned off by those comments as I was.
By the way, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill’s remarks about Dick Cheney’s daughter being “fair game” indicate the Kerry campaign thinks of same-sex marriage as a “game,” rather than the serious subject that it is.
Ken Bauer
Madison, AL
WILLIAM KRISTOL’S article on the Mary Cheney issue was very insightful. My question is: What if a Republican had done what John Kerry did? Imagine the outcry that would have ensued.
I don’t care what party you are associated with–what Kerry did was wrong. I heard on Fox News that there was a collective groan in the press room during the debate. I believe it. My own reaction was simply: Has it come to this? Whatever happened to basic political ethics? And what does it say about your character when you defend something you know is wrong, just because it may help your party?
Dave Hankins
South Bend, IN
AMEN TO ALL THAT William Kristol writes in “‘Fair Game.'” As a gay Republican, I could empathize with Mary Cheney. She appears to have more courtesy and class in her little finger than John Kerry and John Edwards possess in their combined beings.
Ross A. Hoffman
Grand Rapids, MI
I WANT TO THANK William Kristol for calling John Kerry what he is: an opportunist who will use anything and anybody to further his own political agenda. Just when it seems the Democrats can sink no lower, they come up with something like this.
I’m very proud that President Bush is an honorable man who does not try to build himself up at someone else’s expense.
Sylvia Simpson
Trophy Club, TX
I TRULY APPRECIATED William Kristol’s article on Mary Cheney. It mirrored my thoughts exactly. If someone ever exploited my child the way John Kerry and John Edwards did with Mary Cheney, I don’t think I would behave with as much reserve and class as the Cheneys did.
I admire them greatly, and I admire Mary Cheney for having more intestinal fortitude than Kerry and Edwards put together.
Margaret Shaw Peletier
San Antonio, TX
Time For an “Oohrah!”
REUEL MARC GERECHT’S article “The Battle for Iraq” (Oct. 11) was followed by a sub-headline that said it all: “Forget gradualism and Iraqification–send in the Marines.” Our politicians and diplomats are so frozen by international political correctness that they refuse to see the obvious: The Iraqis do not like us, and almost none of the Arabs like us.
The U.S.-led coalition humiliated all Arabs when they rapidly defeated what the region saw as an elite Arab fighting force. As much as most hated Saddam Hussein, we made no friends by humiliating them. Our military operation sent an unmistakable message to the region. That message was understood. Libya responded quickly, and others backed off. Respect, however, is one thing. Gratitude is quite another. We cannot be naive about this. Arabs do not like us any more now than they did on 9/11.
We are now diluting that positive message with unproductive “gradualism” in Iraq. We must do what we do best. We need to clean out, pacify, and then get out. There will be no cleaning out or pacifying as long as we fear Arab reaction to the point that we refrain from taking action. Delay will only make things worse.
The Arabs, including Iraqis, understand respect. To them, tolerating disrespect is a sign of weakness. We are way overdue. The only way out of the mess in Iraq is to send in the Marines.
Wayne G. Skaggs
Wimberley, TX
Bush’s Moral Realism
IN HIS ARTICLE PRAISING the Bush administration’s crusade for “democracy” (“The Two Faces of Liberalism,” Oct. 18), Adam Wolfson admits that “Iraqi gratitude was never to be expected, since the war was undertaken more in self-defense than to end that country’s misery.” Wolfson’s realism is welcome–though in view of Iraq’s lack of weapons of mass destruction, his term “self-defense” deserves scrutiny.
But if he admits that Iraqis did not want us to invade, then how was our attack a gift of democracy? The gap between slogan and reality is apparent in plans for the January elections, where exile-led parties friendly to the United States are colluding to dominate the vote. One danger is that America’s self-serving use of “democracy” will lead others to scorn democracy itself. That is why John Kerry’s internationalist realism would do more to advance democracy than George Bush’s moralist militarism.
And if we really care about democracy, isn’t it interesting that the rest of the world ardently wishes to see new leadership in the United States?
David Keppel
Bloomington, IN
Never Have We Ever . . .
THE CHALLENGE for William Kristol’s succinct editorial “Never” (Oct. 18) must have been how to choose among Senator John Kerry’s many unique negatives. I therefore must add another “never before” item, because it still stuns me.
Last year, Kerry described the 30-plus nations who comprise our coalition in Iraq as a “trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted.”
I have a history question for WEEKLY STANDARD readers: Has any American politician–never mind presidential candidate–ever managed to heap more brazen contempt on more close allies with fewer words?
G. Kendrick Macdowell
Washington, DC
WILLIAM KRISTOL missed one on his “never before” theme: Never before has the United States elected a president whose speeches were once piped into the cells of American POWs for the purpose of demoralizing them.
Kirk O. Kolbo
Minneapolis, MN
