THE JANET'S NIPPLE TEST

This will be my last post on anything related to the Mary Cheney spat, at least today, probably ever.

One of the points I've heard Bill Maher (with whom I agree 70-75% of the time) make about the media frenzy following Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl last January was the following: If you only heard the reaction to the story and not the event itself, you would have thought that Janet Jackson had expressed verbal support for Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden at the Super Bowl, or bit Tom Brady's dick off, or something.

The reality, of course, was a half-second exposure of a 40-year-old woman's right nipple on television. The sky was certainly not falling.

Now let's apply that test to the Bush-Cheney response to Kerry's comments referring to Mary Cheney during Wednesday's debate. Okay people, turn on your Harrison Bergeron handicap radios, and ponder the following quotes:

"Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man. Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick.".

"You saw a man who will do and say anything to get elected, and I am not just speaking as a father here, although I am a pretty angry father".

"...a crass, below-the-belt political strategy to attack the vice president's daughter."

Okay.

Going by those quotes, would it be fair to assume that...

--The vice president's daughter is not yet out of the house, and is not openly gay?

--The vice president wants his daughter's sexuality out of the public discourse?

--John Kerry said something negative about the vice preisdent's daughter?

--John Kerry said something sexually negative/slanderous about the vice president's daughter? ("below-the-belt", "cheap and tawdry")

Gee, sure sounds like it.

Okay, you may now remove your late-21st Century brain scramblers. Would you be surprised to learn that Mary Cheney is not only in her mid-thirties, but is an out lesbian, has done gay/lesbian outreach work for Coors, and runs Dick Cheney's campaign?

Would you be surprised to learn that John Kerry's comment was the following:

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.

And would you be surprised to learn that Cheney himself has voluntarily brought up his daughter's sexuality on the campaign trail?

In all of those cases, I'm sure you would be. I'll leave the rest to Queen Gertrude.


(Maybe if Kerry called Mary Cheney something along the lines of "the White House dog", he would get his ass kissed by the Howard Kurtz's of the world)