Romney a Lock - You Can Put it On the Board YESSSS!!

Openly gay Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart, did not approve of Grenell's decision to go to work for Romney:

Hounded by the left. Fact.

Hounded by the right? Any evidence? Any?

 

How dare an openly gay man work for Mitt Romney:

The Left really celebrated this hire, didn't they?

 

It does sound like the guy was a load to deal with overall -- since he was anonymous to most of us until yesterday, it's easy to be led onto either side of this debate, but it would be like hiring Larry Brown because everyone says he's a great coach and then discovering two weeks in what a pain he is.

This guy actually sounds a lot like Eli Gold from "The Good Wife" -- coincidentally enough, a character who is perceived by some as guy, played by an actor who is openly gay. Got the overriding snark thing down pat.

 

Well, it certainly speaks to Romney's competence that he hired a loudmouth and a loose cannon as his spokesman for foreign policy. That's not an area that requires a deftness with words, at all.

Since you had trouble finding examples of the right wing complaining about Romney hiring an openly gay man, the folks over at TPM thoughtfully collected some of them for you.

Here's The Corner:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/297106/who-richard-grenell-anyway-matthew-j-franck

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/297194/re-all-means-let-s-worry-about-richard-grenell-matthew-j-franck#

Here's someone named Bryan Fischer at the American Family Association:

http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147520359

Bryan Fischer@BryanJFischer
Romney picks out & loud gay as a spokesman. If personnel is policy, his message to the pro-family community: drop dead.

Bryan Fischer@BryanJFischer
I'm not a homophobe; I'm a homo-philiac, meaning I love them enough to tell them the truth and hope they leave the lifestyle.

Here's the Family Research Council:

http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/natural-barn-killers

Finally, here are leaders of GOP LGBT groups reacting:

“Today is a day when national security and foreign affairs is front and center and Mitt Romney don’t have the best person available speaking on his behalf,” said GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia. “He has Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins to thank for that.”

Fred Karger, openly gay Republican candidate for president, said he knows Grenell well and was “still getting over the shock” of the resignation when TPM reached him on the campaign trail in California. He blamed the Fischers and Perkins of the world and said he doubts Romney will risk angering them again, despite what Karger called a strong Romney record of hiring openly gay staff.

“It’s going to be difficult for Romney to take other steps like this. And that’s what’s really frightening to me,” Karger said. “It’s just too tough to stand up to these groups because they have a lot of money and power. You’ve got to be able to do that, that’s leadership.”


For his part, Fischer’s certainly happy to take the credit.

“If my public comments about Romney’s gay activist hire had anything to do with today’s decision, I did the guv a big favor,” he tweeted.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/gay-republicans-dismayed-as-romney-staffer-pushed-out-by-social-conservative-right.php?ref=fpb

 

Fred Karger has YF's vote -- only candidate for president who supports lower taxes AND the defeat of the North Carolina anti-gay law.

 

Yeah, Bryan Fischer at the American Family Association, criticized the hiring. BFD.

And then every other story about "all" the right wing criticism of his hiring uses this one example as its jumping off point -- even though they can't find further evidence.

And, there's no evidence that Bryan Fischer's criticism had anything to do with his departure from the campaign,

Your first Corner link is all about his flame war with Capehart. It sums it up thusly:

The issue is his being a loose cannon, not being gay.

 

I love it. "No, no, not THOSE conservatives. They don't matter. Don't pay any mind to THEM."

It's not as though the American Family Association or the Family Research Council have any clout within the GOP, right?

The AFA owns 180 radio stations. And the Family Research Council, James Dobson's group? They don't have any influence in the GOP, do they?

I'd be remiss, however, if I didn't point out that you missed quite a bit while glancing over at The Corner, who I assume you're not dismissing out of hand?

From the Corner:

Grenell and I know what is at stake, and he knows that if more conservatives think as I do, his most important cause is doomed, whereas if more conservatives think as Williamson does, he wins. I would go so far as to say that one is not a complete, thoughtful, consistent conservative unless one gets over one’s detestation of the “gay-marriage debate” and gets in this fight for justice.

If you're not against gay marriage, you're not a real conservative. Further:

One word more. It seems pretty plain that, whatever fine record he compiled in the Bush administration, Grenell is more passionate about same-sex marriage than anything else. So here’s a thought experiment. Suppose Barack Obama comes out — as Grenell wishes he would — in favor of same-sex marriage in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. How fast and how publicly will Richard Grenell decamp from Romney to Obama?

Got that? A gay person working for Republicans is probably a fifth columnist. Not to be trusted.

 

His statement:

YF, you can say all you want that it's about him being a loose cannon and not being gay except that he himself is explaining to you why he's leaving.

He's unhappy that Romney has not put him out front in the job he was hired to do and he is saying Romney is keeping him under wraps because of the "hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes come in a presidential campaign."

Since Romney has been campaigning against Republican opponents, it's not hard to figure out exactly what he is saying.

 

The defense of Romney on this case is not convincing. Grenell was a "loose cannon" because as a gay man, he supported gay marriage, a position which the Republican Party cannot tolerate. In short, this was a purge, anyway you cut it.
Why any gay people vote Republican escapes me. They are regarded as less than human by the party they support.

 

So the guy supports gay marriage and wants Obama to take a more convincing stand on gay marriage, but he supports Romney in spite of his opposition to gay marriage.

Did we just out YF?

 

You are right, one has nothing to do with the other. The Hilary Rosen comments had nothing to do with the Obama campaign. Nothing at all. It's been well established. But keep presenting strawmen, as is your want.

OTOH, Romney HIRED the spokesman. The spokesman WORKED for Romney. Feel free to point out all of the other gay employees of the Romney campaign, since Republicans are so open minded.