Last week, Mitt Romney hired Richard Grenell as his new foreign policy spokesman. Grenell was President Bush’s communications director at the United Nations for eight years, and has been a spokesman for a handful of prominent Republicans such as George Pataki and Dave Camp.
Along with his qualifications, Grenell is also gay.
When the campaign announced the hire, Grenell’s sexual orientation wasn’t noted in media coverage, nor, arguably, should it have been. He got in a bit of a tangle for scrubbing his Twitter profile to erase messages he wrote about Newt Gingrich and his wife, but that was about the only newsworthy development in the hiring announcement.
That is, until a gay-bashing radio host at the American Family Association wrote in his blog that by appointing Grenell, Romney was telling the so-called pro-family community to “drop dead.” CNN amplified that message from Bryan Fischer by inviting him on for an interview.
***Grenell’s appointment also signaled that the Romney campaign had fully moved on from the primary in which the former Massachusetts governor vaulted to the right wing of his party to win conservative voters who were less likely to support gay rights.
In a general election, however, being open to gay rights could even help Romney win some independent voters – especially against a president who has been timid about outright support of gay marriage.
Actively helping Romney dump all the insane and extreme positions he took during the primary. And I love how Obama’s amazing record on gay rights is reduced to being “timid about outright support of gay marriage.”
You do see how it is done, though, don’t you? Make an appointment that does nothing to advance gay rights or take back the harm your rhetoric did during the primary, nothing to change the extreme positions of the GOP on gay rights or change the fact that if elected, you will do nothing for gay rights, then your insane right flank freaks out, and a stenographer comes along from ABC and tells everyone you’re really a centrist.
Just kill me now.
Napoleon
I refuse to click on the link. Anyone know who wrote that/where it appeared?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And I love how Obama’s amazing record on gay rights is reduced to being “timid about outright support of gay marriage.”
They’ve had a lot of help there.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Well, yeah, it happens here.
Ash Can
Now, now. Don’t jump to conclusions about media collusion. The writer may simply be drugged-out delusional, that’s all.
Suffern ACE
Yes, because by hiring on a gay man to little fanfare Romney is practically endorsing the entire gay agenda. I expect Romney to preside over the first Post DOMA same sex wedding within a few weeks after being sworn in. Hes gonna fast track card check, too. Is a win win for gays and the labor movement all around.
Scott
Hey, it’s a rough economy. You don’t want these newspaper employees to do something that might jeopardize their paycheck, do you? Saying bad things about Republicans is a good way to lose your job! But there’s always going to be a fat paycheck waiting for someone willing to write down and publish everything a Republican says…
Ash Can
@Napoleon: The mouse-over shows an ABC News blog. If it was Jake Tapper I’ll bust his damned chops if he ever shows up here again.
MattF
One may note, incidentally, that Romney’s forays into foreign policy– via a couple of WaPo op-eds– have been judged to be disasters by the in-crowd. By going forward and appointing John Bolton’s spokesgay as his own, Bishop Mitt is giving a loud and clear FU to the foreign policy establishment.
Hunter Gathers
Never mind that Grenell’s a typical conservative misogynist neo-con; the fact that he’s gay means Mittens is teh most moderate GOPer evah. This is ‘No one who speaks German could be evil’ territory.
becca
So far the press has assiduously avoided referring to this guy as John Bolton’s spokesperson. Just another mild-mannered GWB aide…
cathyx
So now that Mitt got a gay, dems and reps are equal. What’s the next one they need? They need a latino, I guess Rubio will have to do. He needs to hire a black woman for something. Is there one?
c u n d gulag
The MSM has heard the call:
“Full complicity and sycophancy ahead!”
I hope they remember to ask Mitt to take off his magic underwear so as not to leave saliva stains on them when they kiss and lick his ass.
David Hunt
@Ash Can:
It was Matt Negrin.
Ash Can
@cathyx: They could always just dress Allen West in drag.
Frankensteinbeck
This is not a winning strategy, especially for a Republican.
Ash Can
@David Hunt: Duly noted. Thanks.
driftglass
Republicans do a booming business in tarting up the self-loathing/delusional fraction of minority groups and turning them out as Useful Idiots.
It the reason Andrew Sullivan has a career.
Culture of Truth
They need a horse race. Everything will be good news for Romney from now until November.
cathyx
A gay black latina republican woman would be worth her weight in gold right now.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cathyx: She needs to be Jewish as well.
p.a.
What’s Grenell’s foreign policy take on gay rights in Uganda, the Muslim world and Asia, where the worst atrocities seem to occurr?
gaz
I don’t know who applied the ink to this rorshchach of a column, because I won’t follow the link, but if above isn’t the dumbest statement in modern american politics it’s certainly stiff competition.
My fucking god, how do they even survive april fools day?
SatanicPanic
@cathyx: Sometimes I think about changing orientations, party affiliation and maybe even gender so I can go join the gravy train. Then I can come back here and write “I GOT MINE F**KERS!” It would be soooo easy…
Tom S
Not to contribute to stereotypes, but some of his tweets were downright bitchy.
amk
Me too John, me too.
gaz
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): If ABL pretended to be gay right about now, she could fund ABLC through the millennium. =)
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
Condi Rice. Maybe she can get one of her old jobs back.
kindness
There is more than enough time to allow the right wing of the Republican Party to burn Romney at the stake. It just has to be pushed to do so. This can easily be accomplished but it will take a deft touch and a bit of pushing the correct buttons on a couple of the correct right wing groups.
The gay issue won’t sink Obama and will only help Romney with Sully, and he can’t vote.
handsmile
My favorite part of the article were the quotes from Fred Karger, “a gay Republican activist who waged a long-shot bid for his party’s presidential nomination.”
“I think acceptance is there,” the delusional Mr. Karger averred on out gays working for Republicans.
Anyone ever heard of Fred Karger before? Has ABC News ever considered him worthy of quoting before?
bemused
I’m about to OD on village stenographer stoogery. Then I read that the Kardashians were renewed for another three years. Idiots get paid outrageously for producing useless crap. What a country.
OTH, reading the funniest autocorrects on Damn You Auto Correct! made my day.
Ben Cisco
Only thing left to say at this point:
David Hunt
@Roger Moore:
Yeah. Because nothing bad happened to the U.S. while she was National Security Adviser…
gaz
ABC has no shame. That I expect.
Against my better judgement I followed the link.
My god. The STUPID!, how it BURNS!
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): “She needs to be Jewish as well.” brings to mind Sammy Davis Jr’s description of his own social infirmities: “I’m a one-eyed Negro Jew.” Back in the days when the Rat Pack was a solidly Democratic bloc.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Mormons wrote, sponsored, and got Prop 8 passed here in California and everyone in the state knows it. That shit ain’t gonna fly here.
I don’t know what people want out of Obama. The guy has done more for the gay community that every other president combined, and yet somehow he not only gets smeared as being anti-gay, but people believe it.
I don’t know why he’s running for re-election. Really don’t. If I were in his shoes and had to put up with this shit every day, I’d tell the country to go get fucked and take my money and retire in Hawaii.
Zandar
Plenty of assholes on our side have been spouting that particular line for the last three plus years now, so it’s fair game for Tappity-Tap-Dance Tapper.
Self-serving sabotage.
Skerry
Slightly OT, but regarding Romney’s foreign policy picks, we have updated news on Obama’s support for Czechoslovakia.
Roger Moore
@David Hunt:
It didn’t keep her from getting promoted before, why should it keep her from being rehired now?
AxelFoley
So let I get this straight (no pun intended): RMoney hiring a gay man as his foreign policy expert (a former Bush communications director, at that) will win over Independents from President Obama? From President Obama, who has more gays working in his administration and has done more for gay rights than ALL presidents combined? All because President Obama has not outright supported gay marriage, while at the same time neither has RMoney or anybody else in the GOP?
I’ll be so glad when November comes and we can be done with all this bullshit. Until the 2014 midterm elections, that is.
Frankensteinbeck
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
The man cannot get credit for anything. The Onion had a hilarious article about Obama finally losing it and telling the American people what a bunch of ingrates they are and that he’s leaving. Thankfully, it was one piece of their satire that’s not coming true.
AxelFoley
@cathyx:
There was an article on MSN yesterday or the day before about a black female Mormon Republican. I didn’t read it, but it shouldn’t be hard to find. I guess she’d do.
Frankensteinbeck
@AxelFoley:
A female black Mormon Republican is sure as Hell a minority.
Southern Beale
Er, no. He also scrubbed blatantly misogynist Tweets targeting Hillary Clinton, Rachel Maddow and Michelle Obama.
He’s just a misogynist dick. Plain and simple.
Nellcote
@Southern Beale:
At last count he has scrubbed over 800(!) tweets.
General Stuck
They want him to be white, so they don’t have to deal with all the icky pompous feelings they get when they see his black face set against the White House, and their white birthright demons tells them “you can’t for a minute let yourself think this man is the boss, and is smarter and stronger than you are”
StevenDS
@Hunter Gathers: Exactly. Dude is a total asshole wingnut.
AxelFoley
@Frankensteinbeck:
Here’s the article:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/meet-mia-love-black-conservative-mormon-running-congress-175550501.html
El Cid
They’re angling for the huge demographic of gay neo-Confederate high income foreign policy hawk anti-immigrant extremists who are also for immediate recognition of gay marriage. There must be at least two or three in the country.
Clime Acts
Obama could shut down all this bullshit RIGHT NOW by coming out in full support of marriage equality, as he should.
rikryah
getting the equivalent of a gay Clarence Thomas to speak for you. ….
I guess gays are more understanding than Black folk.
cause he could hire every Black GOP slave catcher under the sun, and it wouldn’t change our minds.
rikryah
@General Stuck:
thank you
Comrade Dread
This.
Attention news media: Hiring this man doesn’t signal that Romney is going to lead the local pride parades and hold gay wedding receptions at the White House.
Hiring this man says that Romney looked back at the eight years of the Bush administration and thought, “That was freakin’ awesome. Let’s do that again.”
AxelFoley
@Clime Acts:
Oh, shut the fuck up. You know that won’t stop his critics in the GOP or PL.
Carolinus
ABC… I know reporting is hard and all but your article on Romney-as-civil-rights-hero really needs to be tempered with things like this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/30/mitt-romney-gay-marriage_n_1391867.html
If you give 10K to NOM you’ve picked sides and you’re now a major adversary to gay rights.
RalfW
Actual reporters (uh-huh) might want to ask Richard Grenell, if he were in a leadership position in (gaaaaah) a Romney Administration, how he would deal with Ugandan treatment of gay people — that is, y’know, the killing of them.
See how they tie themselves in knots being both anti-anti gay but not alienating the right wing that is sending their damn missionaries over there to continue poison Africa with the white “christian” homophobia virus.
Carolinus
Oh, and of course Romney also pledged to amend the Constitution to enshrine gays and lesbians as second class citizens… ABC left that out of their puff piece as well.
RalfW
@AxelFoley: Clime Acts is trolling. Of course Obama isn’t going to full-stop endorse same-sex marriage before the election. He’s not an idiot.
Obama has taken a clear position against the MN and NC amendment fights. If re-elected, I expect his position to continue to evolve.
Romney? See item a few comments up about $10,000 and NOM. He used the gay community in Massachusetts and will do the same this time. Until the current GOP leadership generation dies or moves to tax havens, the base cannot tolerate anything beyond meaningless tokens like Grenell.
Sure, some residents of Log Cabins will use this as an excuse to do what they wanted anyway, which is to be selfish on taxes and sell their community down the river. But the non-deluded gay community has to point out the NOM-ing and flip-flopping on teh gehys right up to Nov 6.
Brachiator
@Tom S:
I didn’t know squat about Richard Grenell’s sexuality before, only that he was the source of some of the most gratuitously nasty tweets directed at Michelle Obama and Newt’s wife.
He’s bitchy in the same way that the fat eunuch Limbaugh is bitchy.
@Clime Acts:
And this would accomplish, what? Aside, of course, from making you feel good. Marriage is a state issue. Maybe the Supreme Court could do something. A president, not so much.
@rikryah:
You may have a point here. An example would be those prominent gay black people in the Civil Rights movement who were told to shut up and keep quiet, and who agreed to this shameful accommodation, because the conventional wisdom said that the issue of sexuality was just too hot for America to handle in the 50s and 60s.
Ben Cisco
@rikryah: TELL IT!
Thoughtcrime
Relax John.
No one’s falling for this crap. Read the comments at the link – they’re brutal.
An example:
The new attitude…I WILL DO WHATEVER I CAN TO GET YOUR VOTE….But I won’t let my aide marry who he wants. Sorry MITT, if you were anymore transparent, people would walk right through you.
Posted by: MiketheElectrician | April 26, 2012, 9:54 am 9:54 am
Tone In DC
@General Stuck:
Stuck, I like that.
Some Loser
@rikryah:
I think I love you. Platonically, of course.
Tone In DC
@rikryah:
Damn right.
Haydnseek
@AxelFoley: Being Bush’s communications director is like being Stevie Wonder’s optometrist.
ABL 2.0
@rikryah: fucking right.
xian
@Clime Acts: Then you’d move the goalposts again.
mclaren
Moreover, I’ll bet Romney’s new advisor is anti-gay and rabidly homophobic.
Conservatives have a long history of appointing Jews who are anti-semitic (Roy Cohn), former communists who are rabid Red-baiters, gays who are fanatically homophobic (evangelical preacher Ted Haggard), blacks who are vicious anti-black racists…and so on.