Cheney family feud

Dick and Lynne Cheney have two daughters.    Liz, 47, is trying to unseat the long-time U. S. Senator from Wyoming, Mike Enzi.   Mary, 44, is a lesbian mother, married in 2012 to Heather Poe.

Liz's political campaign is a troubled one to begin with.    Although the family has deep roots in Wyoming going back several generations, Liz is mostly a product of suburban Washington, where her father has served as congressman, vice president, Secretary of Defense, and Chief of Staff;  and her own work has been in government in Washington.

Enzi has been a well-like, effective senator, and he is one of his people.   At 69, they see no reason to replace him, especially with a young woman whose missteps in trying to overcome an "outsider" image have been the main news -- along with her lag in polls.

Now the issue of gay marriage has entered the picture.   Trying to position herself to the right of Enzi in order to grab the far-right electorate, Liz has declared herself to be opposed to same-sex marriage.

Hearing this coming from Liz's mouth on FoxNews enraged Mary and Heather, who had felt that Liz was sincere in her warm support of their relationship and in telling them how happy she was for them when they married.    Mary says she had always assumed that Liz shared their father's view, as he expressed both in the vice presidential debate in 2008 and recently in an interview with Barbara Walters:   "I think people should be able to marry the person they love.  I don't have any problem with same-sex marriage."

Now on top of everything else Liz has a problem with credibility.   Has she been harboring negative feelings and hiding them from her sister, with whom she used to be close?    Or is she now flip-flopping in order to try to win an election?

The sisterly rift is now deep.   Mary and Heather have been frank about their feelings on Facebook and in an interview with The New York Times.   Mary says she has no plans to see her sister during the holidays.   When reminded by the reporter that her criticism could complicate her sister's Senate campaign, Mary's response was a clipped:  "OK."

Next to the odious Kardashians, the family I most dislike is probably the Cheney's.  Dick is a snarly, war-mongering grouch who wants to control the world;   Lynne has one of the most grating personalities I've ever heard on the news talk shows (she was head of the National Endowment for Humanities under Reagan).   Liz has the worst traits of both parents.

I do like and admire Mary.   And I admire her father for one thing:   that even in his political campaign to be Vice President on the Republican ticket, he did not shy from giving his full support to gay marriage.

Now Liz is trashing the only likeable thing about her family -- and trashing any credibility she might have in the process.

It's sort of like the Republican Party itself -- a family split between reasonableness and pandering to the prejudices of a small base.

Another chorus of "Schadenfreude, Schadenfreude," please, to the tune of "Edelweiss."

Ralph