The Grenell story lives another day:
It was the biggest moment yet for Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team: a conference call last Thursday, dialed into by dozens of news outlets from around the globe, to dissect and denounce President’s Obama record on national security.
But Richard Grenell, the political strategist who helped organize the call and was specifically hired to oversee such communications, was conspicuously absent, or so everyone thought.
It turned out he was at home in Los Angeles, listening in, but stone silent and seething. A few minutes earlier, a senior Romney aide had delivered an unexpected directive, according to several people involved in the call.
“Ric,” said Alex Wong, a policy aide, “the campaign has requested that you not speak on this call.” Mr. Wong added, “It’s best to lay low for now.”
The whole thing is a portrait of a campaign that’s piss-pants scared of the right wing of their party. Santorum didn’t win the nomination, but he’s clearly in charge.
Handy
Rmoney want to make inroads to the LGBT vote.
Maybe he should offer them car elevators because his outreach seems more like a smack down.
c u n d gulag
Typical.
On a conference call, gay people can not only not be seen, but shouldn’t be heard, either.
Log Cabin R’s, what say you, dumbasses?
Scott S.
Someone ask Grennell if the money is still all that matters, or if maybe he’d care for a little fucking respect, too. ‘Cause he’s gotta know by now that he’ll never get it from the GOP.
Irving
Seven more months of this while the MSM pretends it’s a horse race. Just shoot me.
Keith
Can’t wait for him to have to answer to all of this shit.
honus
The guy worked for John Bolton. Anybody that craven and stupid deserves what he gets.
Kirbster
So, the Romney plan for the next five months is to react each day by dissecting and denouncing everything the President says and does. Talk about whiny and tedious…
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
And still nearly 50% of the voting public will end up voting for these jackasses.
Though that still concerns me less than the idea that the GOP will still own things on the state-level once it’s all said and done, or the idea of Congress becoming even more of a solid GOP obstructionist bulwark.
deep
And yet Grenell’s still unabashedly Republican! Hasn’t he figured it out now? His whole party is morally bankrupt.
Svensker
@deep:
He’s a war mongering neo-con. Let him stay with the GOP, please. We don’t need any more hawks in the Dems.
amk
Shorter mittbot – “I’m running for prezinent, for pete’s sake”
@honus: Yup, Karma is such a sweet beeyotch. Especially towards rethugs.
Merp
“The whole thing is a portrait of a campaign that’s piss-pants scared of the right wing of their party.”
I don’t think you can claim this in good conscience.
The magic underwear absorbs the piss before it reaches the pants.
Villago Delenda Est
@honus:
While this may be true, the fact is, he worked for John Bolton, who is one of the heroes of the wingtards.
You’d think that this fact alone would give him cred that being gay could not nullify.
But purity is the true god of the wingtards. Grennell’s tainted, no matter how politically correct his foreign policy
credentials and positions are. The ghey nullifies all. He is to be disrespected and shunned by all right thinking Republicans.
Why do gay men INSIST on thinking they’ll be treated with any dignity or respect as they’re put on the trains to Pat Robertson’s Vernichtungslager for their kind?
deep
@Svensker: Yeah, well I’m hoping this incident helps him realize that killing brown foreigners isn’t such a good idea after all.
ericblair
@Kirbster:
So his plan is to trail around after Obama and “coulda-woulda-shoula” every day on a telecon? That’s leadership?
That’ll work great. Because everyone loves these coulda-woulda-shoulda people snapping at their heels at work or at home. Right now, Rmoney looks like your typical rich asshole boss, and he wants to make it clear he’s not a boss of anything, so he’s just a rich asshole.
brent
It turned out he was at home in Los Angeles, listening in, but stone silent and seething.
Well what does he have to be angry about really? These are his people. The political operatives he chooses to go out there and represent. He has done what he can to make sure such people are in a position to tell him to shut the fuck up. No sense crying about it now.
amk
twitterdom
rikyrah
Willard is a pansy muthafucka.
plain and simple.
lamh35
@c u n d gulag: Tweety had a segment on this with a guy from the HRC and from LCR. The guy from LCR seemed to try to go out of his way NOT to call the R-Money campaign the cowards they were. He seemed more keen to try not to burn his bridges with the campaign than he was to defend his “friend” (kept saying Ric was his friend) honor. Tweety was in rare form yesterday though, so he didn’t let the dude cop-out.
Here’s the clip: Romney aide quits after pressure from anti-gay conservatives
MattF
So…
1) Romney campaign insults ‘X’ (where X = gay, female, latino, working-class, canine-owning, etc).
2) All ‘X’ quit Romney campaign.
3) Romney campaign gets no questions about ‘X’ from media, hears no complaints from ‘X’ in campaign (because there aren’t any).
4) Therefore insulting ‘X’ didn’t actually happen, and is just partisan DFHs making stuff up.
5) In Heaven, everything is fine.
pk
I think gays, blacks or hispanics who work for republicans think that when the purges come they will somehow be spared. I have no sympathy for this moron. He thought as long as he was one of the bullies, participated in the evil war, made fun of women like Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, told all the knee slapping ethnic jokes, all was good. Turned out they were not laughing with him, but at him. Karma!
I hope that the gay community has enough sense not to embrace this idiot.
Kay
This may be just me, but I think writing stupid, childish insults in a public forum and then having to conduct an embarrassing, panicked scrub operation really undercuts the whole “serious foreign policy and diplomatic advisor” role.
He’s a real charmer, and so bright! Yeah, boy. Hire that one, Mitt.
gene108
Saw a Mitt Romney clip about him talking about foreign policy and America’s place in the world. He kept repeating America will be the leader of the Free World. The term Free World kept getting tossed around.
Doesn’t he realize the Cold War has ended and no one really uses the term Free World anymore?
Forum Transmitted Disease
Mitt Romney, building a closet to the future.
amk
@gene108: No one gives a shit anymore about good ole america either. Countries are moving on, with or without us of a. Rethugs are still trying to sell an old meme that everyone has forgotten. Let’s see how many stupid ‘murkans are still left to but it.
Ken
I think it’s important that the Republican base notices the phrase “for now”, to remind them the Etch-a-Sketch will say anything to get into the White House. What’s the best way to play up “for now”?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
VICTORY!
Because nothing says “LEADERSHIP” like throwing your hand-picked staff to the wolves whenever things become “inconvenient”.
Anyone on the Romney team with half a brain should now realize that they could be next. Good luck attracting quality staff, Mitt.
chopper
fixed.
Jeff Schmitz
Hey Ric (and the rest of the Log Cabin Republicans):
Don’t you get it? Your party hates you. THEY FUCKING HATE YOU. They want you to go away. They wish you never existed.
But keep hanging out with them anyway. Maybe they’ll come around!
geg6
Heh. Rmoney and Sanitorium are meeting today here in Pittsburgh in, as the local tv station put it, an undisclosed location.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that one. Maybe Rmoney will give Rih Grennell’s scalp.
shortstop
@brent: Of course you’re right in every particular, but Grenell clearly suffers from the pan-Republican disease of “Bad Stuff Doesn’t Apply to Me Me Me, and If It Does I’m the World’s Largest Victim EVAR,” and I guess that trumps the lesser rule of “Lie Down with Dogs…”
BTW, I’ve been too busy to read much this week so not sure if this has been discussed, but Grenell’s vague official statement obnoxiously ignores assigning blame to the GOP with its both-sides-do-it reference to hyperpartisanship. Fucker can feel victimized all he wants, but he’s still such an obedient little foot soldier that he can’t publicly call out his own party for what it did. Loser.
The Other Chuck
@gene108:
Neil Young is still rocking in it.
danimal
Love the song reference….voices carry!
jim filyaw
sullivan says that he “didn’t realize that erik erickson (red state) was a homophobe” but now he does. that admission is astounding as is sullivan’s naiveté. if nothing else is obvious about that narrow minded, pig headed, right wingnut, tub of lard, it is that he is a card carrying bigot.
note to sullivan: bigots tend to be intolerant.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You go to love Mitten’s thinking; his friends to the evangelical right don’t trust him. So what does Mitt do, to show he’s cool with the Evangelicals? Hires a openly gay spokesman. Talk about playing right into every criticism from the Evangelicals ever made against Romney.
So the Evangelicals feel Romney is dicking with them and they scream. So Mitt instantly dives for cover and treats Grenell like he has teh gay cooties in a very public way. In one move Mittens confirms to the Evangelicals Grenell hiring was just a cheep shot against them while simultaneously irritats the Log Cabin Republicans, the Neocons and reinforces the mem that Mitt is a weather vane.
I am beginning to wonder if Romney is just a plant in the Romney campaign from Obama.
Frankensteinbeck
The best part is, this won’t actually satisfy the righties. It’s just enough to stop them from screaming for the moment, but it will still leave them pissed at the suspicious outsider who thinks gays are okay. Fucking voter enthusiasm, how does IT work?!
RalfW
It seems to be taking people like James Joyner a very long time to see that the GOP is functionally deranged by gay people.
This may be an inapt analogy, but it sort of reminds me of George Wallace at the door of the school.
This case is far less charged in the moment. But its this dug-in, ultra-fearful and uncomprehending attitude that tries to resist change.
It is a curious feature of human character. Some seem to master their fear, many others are run by it.
El Tiburon
You talking about Obama or Romney?
see: van Jones, et al etc and so on.