So why exactly did Simon & Schuster reportedly pay the daughter of the vice president $1 million dollars?

I'm just trying to understand this, because it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Simon & Schuster, a massive book publishing company that clearly hasn't been around this long by wasting its money, reportedly pays the daughter of the sitting vice president a $1 million advance on a book that, well, doesn't seem to do much of anything.

I just went with Joe to the local bookstore and we took a look at Mary's book. Sure, we'd read the reviews that said Mary's book had nothing new in it, but we thougt we'd take a look for ourselves.

What we found was 200 sparse pages of Mary's reflections on the 2000 and 2004 elections, and some mentions of her gayness. What we did not find is a book that anyone in their right mind would pay $1 million for.

Let's face it. Mary wasn't even on the map until I launched the DearMary.com campaign against her in early 2004. Most people hadn't even heard of Mary, let alone did they know she was a lesbian. Mary became a household word during that year expressly because of my campaign (inspired by gay writer Michelangelo Signorile) - just Google it and check how news stories there were before and after my campaign.

Let me give you a sense of the news coverage the DearMary.com campaign got that first week it was launch (and there are only a few of the news hits we got that week):

- Mary Cheney urged to fight a ban on same-sex marriage (Washington Post, 2/24/04)
- CNN, Newsnight with Aaron Brown, 2/24/04
- Something About Mary (Newsweek, 2/15/04)
- MTV News, 2/24/04
- The O'Reilly Factor, 2/23/04
- Gay-Rights Group Seeks an Ally in Cheney Daughter, (LA Times, 2/21/04)
- Mary Cheney's views on gay marriage sought (AP, 2/19/04)
- Mary Cheney: Mary, Mary Quite Contrary (The Hill, 2/18/04)
- Freedom to Marry activists protest across the country (Gay.com/PlanetOut, 2/13/04)
- Mary Cheney gets the Dr. Laura treatment (The Advocate.com, 2/17/04)
- Washington Blade, 2/20/04
- KABC Los Angeles radio, 2/18/04
- FOX TV, San Francisco
- ANSA (Italy's new service)
- Der Spiegel (Germany), 2/22/04
- La Repubblica (Italy), 2/21/04

There is one reason, and one reason only, that Mary Cheney was and is interesting to the American people. And it's not because of her quick political insights. It's because she's the lesbian daughter of an uber-conservative in a Republican administration based in large part on gay-bashing.

So it would only reason that if Simon & Schuster were interested in Mary at all, it would be to write the lesbian daughter of the VP book. But that isn't what this book is at all.

It's a book that appears to be mostly about her political take on the campaign, which is of interest to just about no one. The gay stuff is there, though clearly not the main focus of the book, and what was most astounding of all, the entire DearMary.com campaign I launched doesn't seem to be mentioned at all (and if it is, it's so quick that we couldn't find it). This is the campaign that's the reason Mary became a story in 2004, the campaign at the center of the entire gay controversy surrounding Mary, the campaign that made Mary a household word, a fact that made John Kerry and John Edwards think of mentioning Mary, and a fact that must have played heavily in her getting her the book (the book is called, after all, "Now It's My Turn." Her turn to respond to her critics, one would assume.)

It's hard to think this was unintentional. Look at the way Mary treats the entire issue in the book. She writes about how John Kerry mentioned her during the presidential debates in October of 2004. She writes about how the Wall Street Journal wrote an op ed following the debate saying something to the effect of "Kerry Outs Mary Cheney." Mary then writes in the book that her plan to be the low-key-under-the-radar lesbian has obviously now failed.

And to that, I give a hearty bullshit.

This is October of 2004 and Mary would like us to believe that she was still the low-key-under-the-radar lesbian until John Kerry outed her? Uh, Mary, you were page 3 of the Washington Post eight months before because of my campaign. It was all over the TV networks, and Newsweek even printed my milk carton with your face on it. So how, pray tell, did the cat get let out of bag in October of 2004 when in fact you were "outed" eight months earlier in all the press? Or is there some reason you're rewriting history here (oh, to attack John Kerry perhaps?), and more importantly, why didn't Simon & Schuster hold you accountable to the facts?

So my question is this. What editor, what book publisher, would give Mary a reported $1 million to write a book that does NOT discuss, let alone focus in a major way, on the major reason she was apparently given the book in the first place? Namely, that she was the subject of a major "outing" campaign (even though Mary has been "out" for a decade, the word works). So why the short shrift on THE issue that would interest the paltry audience that Mary might have for the book?

Unless of course this book wasn't REALLY meant to be a serious discussion of Mary's lesbianism at all. Then what was it meant to be? Why would a major American corporation give $1 million to the daughter of a sitting politician if not for the reason they publicly stated?