Million Dollar Baby

Mary Cheney’s book is likely to come out just as the Republicans and right wing are sharpening the tip of the wedge (again) to use the gay marriage issue to organize for the 2006 mid-term elections. Many have wondered what it would take for Mary Cheney, daughter turned campaign operative, to speak up about her life. It turns out it's a million dollars.

Mary’s father, the Vice President, did the right thing when he admitted he was against President Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. It aggravated the right wing so severely that he was careful to only say it once. His stance certainly didn’t shame the President or his allies. They cynically used the issue both ways – to punish those who supported gay and lesbian rights of full citizenship and to cry foul when people simply pointed out that gays come from all kinds of families, even the Cheneys.

So what will Mary do? Will she be a dutiful Republican and suggest that legalizing her decade plus relationship with her partner Heather isn’t worthy or necessary? Or will she unveil a long harbored frustration at the fundamental unfairness of being made to be a second class citizen in her party? It isn’t that I don’t think the Cheney’s love their daughter. I am just waiting to see how much Mary Cheney loves herself.

I suspect that in her book she will try to convince the American people that she was a victim of exploitation in the last election. She will argue that her private life should not have been brought up in public by John Kerry and John Edwards. Before her father became Vice President, the younger Cheney was hawking Coors Beer in her official capacity as the liaison to the gay market. Mary was more than out, she was making a living off the fact. Seems she still is.

Yes, her private life is her business. Her million dollar business.