🚀 go-pugleaf

In ne.general Charles M. Kozierok <ixlu@pcguide.com> wrote:
> In article <ksvT5.43557$DG3.741866@news2.giganews.com>,
> Xiphias Gladius  <ian@io.com> wrote:
> } I have serious problems with some of the policies that he has standed for
> } in the past.  The complete lack of acknowlegement that his daughter is
> } gay seems strange to me.  Then again, his responses in the VP Debate to
> } the questions on gay rights really impressed me.

> I never saw the VP debate, but understood that he carried himself well.
> I don't know the story about his daughter in detail.

His daughter is a lesbian.  You can't get much more out than his daughter
is -- I've joked that she worked as a "professional lesbian"; Mary Cheney
was the gay community outreach liason for Coors beer when they were trying
to turn around their bad rep in the gay community.

When Lynne Cheney was asked about how she reconciled her and her husband's
rather conservative views with their daughter's homosexuality, she reacted
with a degree of shock which was strange to see -- when you're daughter's
been a gay community liason for a major corporation, it's not really a
secret that she's gay, and Lynne Cheney sort of acted as if it was a deep,
dark secret.

Dick Cheney has rather carefully tried to avoid the issue.  He's generally
worked against equal rights for gays, and has not been asked how he
squares this with his daughter.  The reason he's not been asked is that
our media have been criminally lax in their fourth-estate duties in this
election: they seem to feel that actually asking important questions about
how the candidates think is just outre'.

The closest he came to dealing with the issue was during the VP debate, in
which, as you say, he carried himself well.  In that debate, both
Leiberman and Cheney sounded open to the concept of gay marriage.  Neither
would come right out and say they supported it, but both sounded as if
they understood and respected the reasons for it.

In other words, while neither would state that they supported gay
marriage, I was quite pleasantly shocked that neither would state that
they opposed it.

I don't know how to square Cheney's comments with his policy choices over
his lifetime, and I wish he'd been asked about that.  For all I know, he's
been having long, heart-to-heart talks with his daughter and his feelings
have changed on gay rights.  I don't know.  Nobody had the guts to ask him
about it, so all we're left with is a bunch of rhetoric and a family
situation which doesn't seem to jibe with how he's voted in the past.  I'm
sure there's an explanation, and the explanation may be something
significantly more noble than "he's a lying hypocrite."

But I don't *know* whether it's "he's a lying hypocrite," or "he's a
thoughtful man whose in the process of reexamining his core values to see
how ideas of freedom and rights should play out in the twenty-first
century."  The media never asked him.

> } As far as honesty, there are only a couple of actions I'm aware of of his
> } that I consider somewhat dodgy: first, not stepping down as the head of
> } the VP-picking committe when he became a front-runner for VP,

> My recollection at the time he was picked is that he originally did not
> want the job, and W talked him into it. If true then his behavior is
> understandable; I don't really know.

I don't know.  It seems to me that the minute he started the vetting
process, he should have stepped down as chair of the committe.

> } and second,
> } moving his residency from Texas in order to arguably make the ticket
> } constitutionally able to get Texas's electoral vote.  Even if that *is*
> } found to be constitutional, I still see it as rather dismissive of the
> } *intent* of the Constitution, and a disturbing sign for a potential
> } administration which ran partially on a platform or respect for the
> } Constitution.

> I think you're reading *way* too much into this, Ian. It would be one
> thing if Cheney was a Texan, born and bred, and suddenly established a
> residence somewhere else for political reasons (now gee, nobody would do
> that now, would they? *cough*)

Ah, but the Constitution doesn't say, "Nobody should move to New York in
order to run for Senate."  

It does say "The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall
not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves".  Actually, it
says that *twice*.

> But Cheney was raised in Wyoming, he was
> elected as Wyoming's Rep six times, and he's owned land there for
> a long time.

> At the time the Constitution was written, you didn't have people flying
> all over the country, or situations where residency was so unclear. I
> don't think it's a stretch to say that Cheney isn't really a "Texan",
> from a "spirit of the law" standpoint. I don't think the Founding
> Fathers would be too upset. :)

But, c'mon -- it was important enough to say it twice, once in 1804, when,
sure, we were less mobile, but there was still significant mobility in the
US.  And the word was "inhabitant" -- not "resident", or "native."

I dunno.  I do hope there's a court challenge based on that, and the court
really considers the matter.  Certainly I'm willing to entertain the
notion that my interpretation of that is wrong, but I'd like a court to
rule on it, anyway.

	- Ian
-- 
Marriage, n: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master,
a mistress, and two slaves, making, in all, two. -- Ambrose Bierce 
SSBB Diplomatic Corps; Boston, Massachusetts