Ted beat me to this, mostly. But I wanted to say this: I’m sure if we trawl through our 1990s archives we’ll find that the high-minded and their lofty correspondents

Reader Keith Rempel gets at the heart of what’s wrong here, and articulates what I couldn’t: “Kerry was using Cheney’s daughter to harm her father. … ANOTHER UPDATE: “More thoughts here: ’thou shall NOT speak of another’s kid in any way that could POSSIBLY be construed as negative’ … MORE: … James Somers emails: “Kerry crassly exploited Cheney’s daughter for use against Bush and thus, by extension, Cheney. Perhaps you have to be a parent to understand what that means.”

were right out there on the front lines defending Chelsea Clinton from anything that might have been construed as insulting at the time. (We can leave aside—as perhaps too complex to grasp—the point that it is not actually an insult to mention that someone who has worked in various professional and political contexts doing outreach work with the gay community is, in fact, gay.) I’m waiting to see if the parallel to Chelsea strikes any of the people over at The Corner who are waving the flag of ‘common decency’ in defence of Mary Cheney at the moment. But, of course, I forget: when they’re insulted it’s an offense to common decency and civility, but when we’re insulted it’s just more political correctness and evidence that the left is too sensitive and has no sense of humor.