RUSH TRANSCRIPT

MSNBC, Post-Debate Panel

About 12:10 AM EST (five minutes ago)

Joe Scarborough, to Ron Regan Junior: I would be angry if they turned around and attacked a decision you made [to hurt your father politically], whether it was drugs, or the ballet...

Ron Regan Junior: Hey... (laughing)

Scarborough: Make no mistake, John Kerry was tring to embarass the President, trying to embarass the Cheney family. It was way over the line.

Pat Buchanan (paraphrased): It was gratuitous... jolting... I turned to Chris Matthews, watching it at the time, and he looked at me, and I could tell he was stunned...

John Fuckface Kerry ain't necessarily getting away with this one. Even the liberal media can't help notice the stench of gay-baiting here.

And yes, I'm aware that Buchanan and Scarborough aren't the liberal media per se. But it's out there.

And jeepers, they were able to find this story without even reading blogs!

OgreGunner reminds me that Mort Kondracke was fit to be tied over the shameless lesbian-baiting of John Kerry.

Quick Crack Update: I'm surprised that the Kerry team didn't demand a debate dedicated entirely to the "issues" of kd lang, Melissa Etheridge, The Ellen Show, Angelina Jolie videos, flannel workshirts, and John Deere trucker's caps.

I guess Vernon Jordan got outfoxed by James Baker.

A Gay Reader Doesn't Appreciate It Much Either Update: Rob's kind of annoyed--

As a gay man, I was pretty annoyed when Edwards pulled the Mary Cheney rabbit out of the hat during the vice-presidential debate. It was low.

When Kerry did it tonight, I exploded in front of my liberal friends. "This is the motherfucker you fucktards support!" How I keep my liberal friends is beyond me.

I'm seriously, seriously pissed about this. I'm even more pissed when my gay friends try to tell me how the Democratic Party cares for me and I "owe" them my vote, because the Republicans are such "homophobes" (hate that word). Well, I've been watching this election closely, and I have to say the Democrats are out gay-baiting the Republicans two to one. Does anyone think a Republican would get away with this shit? Fuck no.

I'm tired of it.

Hmmmm... I don't know if Democrats are really "gay-baiting" two to one; it depends on how you define it. I'm sure a lot of gays (I'm thinking of Andrew Sullivan, here) define any opposition to gay marriage as implicitly gay-baiting, etc. And I figure a lot of gays, as well as the liberal media, feel that Kerry-Edwards therefore are owed a lot of free gay-baiting to make up for that deficit.

But just imagine if Cheney weren't on Bush's ticket but Dick Gephardt were.

What would the media say about not one but two gratuitous mentions of Gephardt's lesbian daughter during the debates?

Oh, how they'd howl. And on so many of these issues, I wouldn't mind their howling, so long as they howled in a fair and balanced manner. I might think they're being overwrought, but I wouldn't mind them so much if they were evenhandedly overwrought.

But they don't, and they won't. The Democrats are allowed to burglarize and vandalize Republican campaign headquarters and call for the shooting of Don Rumsfield without media comment.

Meanwhile, of course, the big issue confronting us is the fact that the Dixie Chicks feel "chilled" in their right to be mouthy millionaires.