Daughters of the American Revolution

Can't have it both ways, can you? If you hide your daughters and their lesbian life-partners away, you can't use them to soften your Darth Vaderesque countenance, and if you bring them to the VP debate, you risk them being mentioned by the press and your opponent, in the context of the constitutional amendment prohibiting equal marriage being pushed by your party and the President. Great Salon article on the "furor", including the following relevant facts:

Mary Cheney has been happily out of the closet for at least a decade, so John Kerry was hardly dragging her out against her will. She spent the late '90s working as a veritable professional lesbian, as gay and lesbian corporate relations manager for Coors Brewing Co.

Dick Cheney himself has been using her sexuality on the campaign trail. Watch a Human Rights Campaign ad with him on the stump on Aug. 24, 2004: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter ... " The Bush-Cheney administration has shamelessly used homosexuality as a wedge issue, never hesitating to play the sodomite card when it serves their political ends.

John Edwards brought up Mary Cheney in response to a similar gay-rights question just eight days earlier in the veep debate. Dick Cheney responded by thanking him for his kind remarks.

It seems that the way to avoid all this would have been to use the Julia Thorne (such a soap-star name, btw) technique - I'm far away on my farm in Montana and I've issued my one statement to the press months ago. That way, Kerry doesn't have to discuss his annulment or mental health issues ...