On FOX, Kerry's reference to Mary Cheney's sexual orientation compared to saying “Your daughter is a slut”
Written by Katie Barge
Published
Frequent FOX News Channel guest Kellyanne Conway, president and CEO of The Polling Company, compared Senator John Kerry's reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary Cheney, as a lesbian to “someone” saying, "'Your daughter is a slut,' or 'We want you to open up the divorce records.'" Conway, who is a frequent guest on other cable news channels as well as a panelist on PBS's To the Contrary, made this statement on FOX News Channel's Fox & Friends on October 16.
Earlier on the same program, nationally syndicated radio host and frequent FOX News Channel contributor Mike Gallagher, who was guest co-hosting FOX & Friends, compared Kerry's reference to Mary Cheney to a hypothetical statement about obesity. As Media Matters for America has noted, conservatives in the media have also drawn comparisons between Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney's sexual orientation to revelations about a family member's abortion, adultery, and alcoholism.
From the October 16 edition of FOX News Channel's Saturday edition of FOX & Friends:
CONWAY: All he [Kerry] has to do, Mike, is say “I'm sorry,” and he won't say it.
GALLAGHER: Robert, right, would you agree with that? It's a distraction that the Kerry campaign would've preferred not to have to deal with.
ROBERT ZIMMERMAN (Democratic strategist): It's George [W.] Bush and Dick Cheney who keep making this an issue now, after the debate. They keep raising it in sound bite after sound bite.
CONWAY: John Kerry wants someone to say, “Your daughter is a slut,” or “We want you to open up the divorce records.”
ZIMMERMAN: Oh, my goodness.
CONWAY: Exactly. Doesn't that shock you?
ZIMMERMAN: How can you compare the issue of being a gay person to being a slut?
CONWAY: It's someone's sexuality, it's off limits, and you guys made it that way, just as we don't want to talk about it.
ZIMMERMAN: You might've talked to Dick Cheney before he brought it up.
JULIET HUDDY (FOX & Friends co-host): Parents, take the children out of the room! Actually, bring them back in now, it's over.
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