MICKEY KAUS on the Mary Cheney business:

There must be some Machiavellian strategy behind the Democratic urge to keep bringing this up–most likely it’s a poll-tested attempt to cost Bush and Cheney the votes of demographic groups (like Reagan Dems, or fundamentalists) who are hostile to homosexuality or gay culture or who just don’t want to have to think about it. Or maybe Kerry was just trying to throw Bush off stride. In either case, the fake embrace was even creepier coming from Kerry than it was coming from Edwards.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Lynne Cheney is letting Kerry have it for dissing her daughter:

Lynne Cheney issued her post-debate rebuke to a cheering crowd outside Pittsburgh. “The only thing I can conclude is he is not a good man. I’m speaking as a mom,” she said. “What a cheap and tawdry political trick.”

That seems to be the emerging consensus.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Shockingly, here’s agreement at the BBC: “I thought his mention of Mary Cheney, when asked if homosexuality was a choice, was a cheap swipe, and it defined Kerry’s lack of substance. ”