Hypocrisy Central

Frank Rich has an interesting column in today's NYTimes about the Republicans' playing the ace of high moral dudgeon over John Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney's sexual preferance in the third presidential debate. Rich points out that Karl Rove's history as a political manipulator includes several campaigns in which his candidate's opponent was rumored to be gay, including the notorious whispering campaign against Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994.

Rich says Rove's big problem is with some 4 million fundamentalist Christians who Rove himself said didn't vote for Bush in 2000. They sat at home, Rove apparently believes, because they had found out just prior to the election that Georgie Boy had a drunk-driving charge that had been covered up.

The Republicans were so outraged by Kerry's reference in the last debate to VP Cheney's lesbian daughter because they figger Kerry is doing what THEY would do under similar circumstances ... make sure those 4 million fundamentalist Christians knew there was a LESBIAN in the ranks.

Problem is, according to Rich, while none of the rumors of homosexuality Rove has used against his opponents in the past were, in fact, true, "Mary Cheney is unambiguously and unapologetically gay. For a campaign that wants to pander to the fringe, that makes her presence in the Bush-Cheney family a problem -- just how big a problem can be seen by its disingenuously hysterical reaction to Mr. Kerry's use of the L word. But Mary Cheney isn't the only problem for Mr. Rove as he plays this game. The Republican establishment is rife with gay people -- just ask anyone in proximity to its convention in New York -- and the campaign doesn't want the four million [non-voting fundamentalists] to know about them, either. But in this election season, actual outing has begun to creep onto the Internet, where the names of closeted Republican congressmen and aides who support anti-gay policies are a Google search away. Some named so far -- one of whom dropped out of his re-election campaign in August -- hail from districts where some of those four million live.

"Sooner or later this untenable level of hypocrisy is going to lead to a civil war within the Republican party. But this hypocrisy is not just about homosexuality -- it's about all sexuality, as befits a party that calls for the elimination of Roe v. Wade and the suppression of candid sex education that might prevent teenage pregnancy and AIDS alike. Should Bill O'Reilly-Andrea Mackris tapes exist, as many believe they do, we will learn graphically where the right's most popular cultural defender of G-rated values stands not only on lesbianism but also on extramarital sex, sexual tourism in Asia and masturbation -- which all figure in the complainant's detailed description of her alleged conversations with her boss. But anyone who fears that Mr. O'Reilly has completely abandoned his political faith need not worry. According to Ms. Mackris's account, the one time this would-be Lothario succeeded in luring her to his hotel room alone it was not by offering to show her his etchings, or even Spectravision, but a televised news conference by President Bush."