I'm beginning to get really annoyed at the continual claims by Sen. John Kerry's surrogates that beating the American people over the head with someone else's sexuality is "fair game" or, as Kerry adviser Bob Shrum said on "Meet the Press" today, "trying to say something say something positive."

Kerry's ham-handed effort to scare President Bush's Christian base with the spectre of some secret homosexual conspiracy won't work. Unlike liberals who like to keep themselves in a protected cocoon, away from "religious nuts" (aka evangelical Christians), Christians actually live in the world. We know homosexuals. We're friends with homosexuals. We see their behavior as sinful, but we don't run away screaming "sinner" when we meet one.

What Kerry doesn't realize is that anyone who would be loath to vote for Bush/Cheney because Cheney has a homosexual daughter wouldn't vote for Bush/Cheney anyway.

Having addressed the disgusting reason behind Kerry's decision to drag Mary Cheney out of the background of the Bush/Cheney campaign and put her front and center, let me explain why the candidates families are typicall off-limits -- at least to the campaign's principals.

Let's suppose for a moment, that President Bush came out with a health-care plan that had as one of its major features the promotion of regular exercise -- obesity being one of the leading causes of all sorts of medical problems.

Bush is then asked about this health-care plan in a debate and answers something like this:

My plan would reduce the amount of money people spend on health care, because when you're healthy, you're less likely to need hospitalization, you're less likely to need a heart bypass. When you're exercising regularly and eating right, you're heart's healthier and you don't have back problems. If we really care about each other, we'll encourage people to get in shape. I know Sen. Edwards really loves his wife, and that he would encourage her to drop those extra pounds so that she would live a long life and be able to spend lots of time with their lovely children.

The question is about health care, but what the hypothetical President Bush has done here is point out to everyone that Sen. Edwards' wife is fat. Now, there's nothing wrong with being fat, but you can see why this sort of personal attack turns off so many Americans.

You can also see why the Kerry camp's failure to simply apologize and move on is hurting them.

So, memo to Bob Shrum: "Shut your piehole."