A REMARK THAT NEEDS CLARIFYING

In the Moonie Times piece on the Mary Cheney thing, we hear from a Bush-Cheney campaign spokesperson:

But Nicolle Devenish, communications director for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Mr. Kerry miscalculated the impact of his remarks and now is "backpedaling from what is a crass, below-the-belt political strategy to attack the vice president's daughter."

She said his remarks constituted "a political mistake that I think they'll pay a hefty price for."

There you have it. The Bush-Cheney campaign is now saying that John Kerry, in his remarks during Wednesday's debate, attacked Mary Cheney.

If I may ask a simple, polite question: How so?

Over to you, liberal media!

P.S. At least the Washington Times piece included Cheney bringing up his daughter's sexuality publicly during a campaign appearance this summer. Fox News' piece, on the other hand, did not.

UPDATE: Instapundit makes a very weak attempt to unpack the comment I highlighted yesterday, after Sullivan called him on it.

Andrew also writes: "One last gripe about Glenn: he also writes that Kerry 'dissed' Mary Cheney. How? Is calling an openly gay person gay an insult?" Of course not. It's not even an insult to call a straight person gay. But it is disrespectful to drag people into debates on sexuality on national TV. And it's disrespectful to do so as an effort to -- as Mickey Kaus suggested -- swing the votes of homophobes. I'm surprised that Andrew is so untroubled by this.

Give me a break. Was Mary's father being "disrespectful" when he dragged her into the dialog on gay marriage on national TV? (I remember the coverage) And why did he do that? To swing non-homophobes toward voting WITH homophobes! Again, you're a fucking law professor, think harder.

And as long as we're on the subject, just above that in the same post we find more willfull stupidity from Glenn:

STILL MORE: Andrew Sullivan writes: "The usually even-keeled Instapundit says that Kerry's 'position on gay marriage is the same as the President's.' I can't see how that's even remotely the case."

Well, it was this Kerry statement that led to my conclusion:

The president and I have the same position, fundamentally, on gay marriage. We do. Same position.

Call me crazy, but I took that to mean that they had the same position. Since it was a Kerry statement, I should have realized that I was probably missing out on a crucial nuance. My bad.

"Fundamentally", stupid! What that means is that both Kerry and Bush believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. (Note: TFM does not share this view) Generally, when someone says "fundamentally", that implies, you know, a difference on some details. Kerry does not support a Constitutional amendment singling out an entire segment of our population for discrimination. Bush, on the other hand, does. But their positions on marriage are, fundamentally, the same. Is that so hard to understand? Yeesh.