Just read yeasterday’s WSJ editorial and heard some talk-radio railing about the same thing earlier today — the purported “outing” of the Veep’s daughter. I hate to say this, but I think this is really dumb. What Kerry did was utterly obnoxious, transparently pre-meditated, and worthy of being talked about at length. It goes to his judgment and character. In a close election, it could even be a decisive gaffe. But what he decidedly did not do is “out” Mary Cheney, and some of our folks are going way overboard by saying otherwise.

That term has a very specific, very extortionate meaning — revealing the gay sexual preference of someone who has kept it publicly unknown, usually to try to intimidate the person (and others who also prefer to keep the matter private) into vocal support for the gay socio-political agenda. Ms. Cheney was already “out” — that’s the reason Kerry knew about it.

Strategically, it is counter-productive to claim otherwise. First, it must make gay people and the media think we are clueless — as if we just yelled “touchdown” after a home run. If you’re gonna speak with indignation convincingly — and there’s plenty of good reason to be indignant about what Kerry did — it’s important to sound like you know what the hell you are talking about.

More importantly, calling it an “outing” has the potential to make Kerry seem sympathetic — because the focus becomes whether he is being falsely accused rather than his nakedly calculated crassness. It runs the risk, with the media’s certain help to the Kerry campaign, of changing the subject to “who first revealed her sexual preference” instead of “how could someone who wants to be president behave that way.” Indeed, I think this is already happening.

Sometimes I think we don’t have enough feet to shoot ourselves in.