I think David Neiwert over at Orcinus has the absolute best takedown of the faux GOP outrage in the Mary Cheney flap that I have seen anywhere. And I want it to get wider coverage. An excerpt and a
I guess I must be horribly out of touch with the Republican version of reality, because I'm still not really certain what the hell impropriety John Kerry was supposed to have committed by pointing out in last week's debate that Mary Cheney was gay. It was, by nearly any plain reading of his remarks, a fairly innocuous comment.
But the ensuing fake controversy is the GOP's 2004 campaign in nutshell: Don't let's talk about Bush's dismal record. Let's talk well-spun trivia -- or flat-out smears -- instead.
And when it comes to sensitive treatment of gays and families of gays, no one can match the record of Republicans -- for wallowing so deep in the gutter of bigotry that they definitively make life quantifiably worse for gays, lesbians, and their families.
Take, for instance, the matter of hate crimes.
Betcha didn't know that the Republican leadership of the House, for the third consecutive time, successfully killed yet another federal hate-crimes law last week, didja?
This was a bill that had been approved overwhelmingly by the Senate in June by a 65-33 vote. The House itself House approved the legislation passed a resolution 213-186 instructing the House leaders -- namely, Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert -- to pass the bill through the House Conference Committee.
They ignored it, and last week stripped it out of the Defense Appropriations Bill to which it had been attached, effectively killing it.
This is now the fourth time DeLay and Co. have pulled this stunt and gotten away with it. They used precisely the same tactic to kill the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 1999, and to kill its successor, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, in 2000.
As the Human Rights Campaign explained in its press release:
The measure enjoys strong bipartisan support and is endorsed by more than 175 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations, including: the National Sheriffs' Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and many others.
That didn't matter. What mattered to Republicans was the freedom to bash gays.
There's a lot more. And well worth the trip over to David's site.