posted by Jeremiah John

Though I don't think that Rove came up with this, it's classic Rove politics: if you can make black white and white black, you are invincible. Kerry has to defend himself as a deficit monger; Kerry has to worry about his Vietnam behavior; Bush is the candidate of economic growth; Bush is the candidate of fighting terrorism. And now: Kerry is a gay baiter because he mentions a prominent gay woman in a debate!

from Andrewsullivan.com:

Oh, now I get it. James Taranto is suddenly aghast and upset at gay-baiting! Better late than never, I suppose. In fact, I'm deeply heartened by so many Republicans suddenly concerned about the smearing of homosexuals for political purposes. The reason for Taranto's assertion? He says that Kerry was pandering to the anti-gay parts of the Democratic base, by letting the last few souls on earth know, in an entirely positive way, that the vice-president's daughter is openly gay. And the way Kerry "gay-baited" was to say that homosexuality is not a choice, that he supports equal rights for gay couples, and that Mary Cheney helps prove that being gay isn't a choice. That'll rile 'em up in the trenches, won't it? Seriously, I've called out anti-gay statements by Democrats in the past; and have a long record of sniffing out homophobia and the use of it, wherever it's coming from. Certainly my record is, shall we say, more substantial than Taranto's in this regard. And I fail to see how Kerry's remark could be understood in any conceivable way as gay-baiting. It never occurred to me when I heard it. It does not occur to me now. You know what is based in gay-baiting? Implicitly, clearly, shamelessly: the Bush-Cheney campaign. The GOP has a nutty candidate in Illinois who called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" - but Dick Cheney wasn't an "angry dad," then. Lynne Cheney didn't call that "tawdry." So Bush runs the most anti-gay national campaign ever and it's his opponent who gets tarred as a homophobe! Brilliant, even by Rove's standards. And when it comes to gay-baiting, there are few as practised as Rove. The sheer nerve of these hypocrites never ceases to amaze.

Sullivan's comments are regarding the following article: LINK

Here is another excellent article on the subject from Salon's Dave Cullen

John Kerry's lesbian moment

Dick and Lynne Cheney screamed foul when the Democratic candidate mentioned their gay daughter. But for gays and lesbians, what is most outrageous is the Cheneys' outrage...

Let's get one thing straight. It is not an insult to call a proudly public lesbian a lesbian. It's an insult to gasp when someone calls her a lesbian.