Play it straight? Not Kerry
By Howie Carr
Recent Columns by Howie Carr
Friday, October 15, 2004
John Kerry began his campaign running as a war hero, and he's ending it as Howard Stern.
``I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter,'' he said Wednesday night, ``who is a lesbian. . . .''
Yes, but is she hot, Howard, er, Senator? Will she appear on the next segment of Lesbian Dating?
But John Kerry [related, bio] is a liberal, so he can count on a free ride from his fellow Beautiful People on this cheap shot. His campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, went so far as to say the vice president's daughter is ``fair game.''
Is this the same Mary Beth Cahill who began her career working for Barney Frank? Remember Barney's dear friend, Steve Gobie, aka Hot Bottom? If you mentioned the congressman was fixing parking tickets for his live-in male prostitute, that was ``homophobia.'' That was ``hate speech.''
Mention a gay Republican, that's fair game.
You're not supposed to talk about how Kerry won't release all his military records, or the fact that his billionaire wife won't release her tax returns, or the fact that he confessed, under oath, to being a war criminal.
All that stuff is below the belt.
Mary Cheney, though, is ``fair game.''
God forbid Kerry should have mentioned Dick Gephardt's lesbian daughter Chrissy, or Gov. Jim McGreevey, who put his own personal Hot Bottom on the New Jersey state payroll for more than $100,000 a year.
They're all untouchable. They're liberals. Mary Cheney campaigns for her father, so she's . . . fair game.
Granted, Kerry didn't technically ``out'' her, but that doesn't matter with liberals. A number of years ago, I was the ``leader'' of a study group at Harvard - OK, it was Camelot High, the Institute of Politics. (A guy told me that once I had Harvard on my resume, I would no longer be regarded as a pariah. He was wrong.)
Anyway, right before the five-week class started, I wrote a column about a bar owner - it was a gay bar, the guy lived on Appleton Street, wore a full-length fur coat and died of AIDS. The gays said I ``outed'' him.
The first day I walked into the classroom, I had to cross a picket line. They were protesting me, for ``outing'' their friend.
Do you think Sen. Kerry, or his running mate, John Edwards [related, bio], will face any picket lines in the days ahead?
It's amazing how much you can get away with if you're a Democrat. If Bill O'Reilly had any sense, he would call a press conference to announce he's voting for Kerry - that would be the end of that story.
Kerry gets the same free pass on everything. Following in Bill Clinton's footsteps, he slurred Italians, and as with his hero, it was a one-day story.
Kerry calls his fellow Americans not countrymen, but ``countrypeople.'' But nobody mentions it. He says rights are ``given'' by the courts. He even admits, in answering the final question, that he is a gigolo.
``We all married up. Some might say me more than others. But I can take it.''
Considering the alternative was sleeping in your car, and at the time you owned a convertible, you're damn right you could take it.
And then there were those three final words from his mother as she lay dying.
``Integrity. Integrity. Integrity.''
That wasn't just an admonition for him, it was a deathbed message for the voters about how far her son can be trusted. Just don't expect to read it in the mainstream media.
