[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
You can say that "the Cheneys have a right to feel insulted if they want to -- you can't decide whether or not other people have a right to be insulted by something," but that's ridiculous. If I chose to, I could be insulted if Kath told me that my hair is brown because I'd rather have blonde, but that doesn't mean that I'm being reasonable.

I'm sure yall saw this coming, but I don't think the Cheneys have any reason to feel insulted -- and in reality, I'm not sure that they actually are. I'm pretty sure that they're playing the "insulted" card to make undecided voters think that Kerry is a terrible person. And that's well within their right. It's just that I'm not sure where the insult comes into play. Kerry said that Cheney's daughter is a lesbian, which she is. It's a fact that is only distasteful to some members of society -- and the only reason that somebody should be "insulted" by it is if they choose to see it as distasteful . . . which the Cheneys theoretically don't, as they claim to accept their daughter as is, right? In that case, where's the insult?

I think it was risky for Kerry to mention the Cheneys' daughter in the debate. Personally, I thought it was brilliant. It put Bush off-guard and certainly made him reword his answers in a different way, knowing that he could not go on speaking in such an openly negative way about homosexuality when the viewers were going to connect his statements about homosexuals with Mary Cheney. (I also think that Bush's statements on the homosexual marriage issue were much more insulting than Kerry's, but considering I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I would, wouldn't I? ) Politically, I think Kerry did put off some voters by bringing her up -- he probably also reeled in some others.

Yep. I thought it was great. Bush likes to talk about homosexuality like it's some weird disease (which I'm well aware he thinks it is) and Kerry bringing up Mary Cheney humanized it.