GAAAAAAY DAUGHHHHTERRR!!

The Daily Recycler challenges Andrew Sullivan to address the real reason that Kedwards's use of Mary Cheney is so disgusting. He nails it. (Follow the link and watch the Daily Show clip if you haven't seen it already. And read the eloquent commentary while you're there.)

Note that the Daily Show clip was filmed after the Cheney-Edwards debate. Before John Kerry even threw in his own gratuitous reference to Mary Cheney, Jon Stewart had already seen through the hilarious phoniness. Since then, Kerry-Edwards 2004 has doubled the offense.

The comparison to the "black baby" South Carolina ads (which I have never seen) is apt, and both are contemptible. Both are attempts to win votes by appealing to the bigotry of haters. But there's a major diffence. The "black baby" ads were sponsored by an independent group, something like the modern 527, forbidden to coordinate with the campaign. Kerry has (and should have) no say in what MoveOn says; Bush has (and should have) no say in what the Swift Boat Vets say. Or, for that matter, the racist pricks who ran the "black baby" ads.

Were the pricks necessarily racists, by the way? Suppose you met the guys who made and paid for the "black baby" ads, and they assured you that they were not racists. They favored full equal rights for all groups, were strong supporters of affirmative action, and the treasurer of the organization even had a black wife. They're not racists, they say, they just wanted Bush to defeat McCain in South Carolina, so they pandered to the racists.

Do you believe them? Do you think they're secretly racists themselves? Do you think that a desire to win an election does not excuse stoking the fires of hatred? Or do you believe that by pandering to the racists and thus encouraging racial hatred, they've done the work of racists and are thus de facto racists themselves?

The "black baby" ads, as I said, were not paid for by the Bush campaign. The Kedwards homophobe-baiting, however, was actually uttered by the candidates themselves, both times in front of a live national audience. That's why the Kedwards appeal to haters was far, far worse than the advertisements in South Carolina.

Update: I have been informed that the "black baby" thing wasn't even an ad, it was a whisper campaign. Which doesn't make it any more tolerable, but does make Kedwards look even worse by comparison.