I've made this point before, but I'm going to do so again this morning, if only for the purpose of calling John Cole to account for his use of an insulting and, well, ungentlemanly term to describe Elizabeth Edwards.

For the record, John, Mary Cheney is not only an official employee of BC04, she's also a former board member of the Republican Unity Coalition (a gay rights organization) and the one-time director of gay and lesbian outreach for the Coors Brewing Co. Moreover, according to the AP, she actively "helped the GOP recruit gay voters during the 2002 midterm elections." In other words, complaining about her being described in public as a lesbian makes about as much sense as, say, objecting to Tom Brokaw's being "outed" as an anchorman; her sexual identity is nothing less than an elemental part of who she is and what she does for a living. And branding Elizabeth Edwards a 'bitch' for pointing that out is simply unacceptable.

Now, as regular readers know, this site has an inviolable policy of not delinking people just because I'm (temporarily) disappointed in them, so John is, of course, going to stay right where he is in the blogroll. But, as a longtime reader of Balloon Juice, I know that he's a better man than the post under discussion here would tend to indicate. And I sincerely hope he comes to his senses and apologizes to Mrs. Edwards and his readers at the first opportunity.

POSTSCRIPT: Furthermore, John, if you're really so disturbed by the respectful tone that we Democrats have used when speaking of Ms. Cheney during this election, you might want to take a look at the way movement conservatives have discussed her public activism in the past.

UPDATE: John has responded here. And, like so many others in this bitter election year, he's apparently decided that his opponents' vile depredations justify any kind of rough treatment in return, up to and including calling their wives bitches when they have the temerity to say things he doesn't like.

Oh, well. I guess my old Irish grandfather was right: class will out.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments, John says that I "willfully" misrepresented his post by simply linking to it, rather than examining the reason for his anger. So here goes. John thinks that Elizabeth Edwards was wrong to say this about Lynne Cheney: "She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

So now you know why it's perfectly okay for John Cole to call Mrs. Edwards a bitch.

NOTE: Post updated on Jan. 6, 2005 to eliminate a redundancy.

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