12+ hours since a Republican President made history by appointing @RichardGrenell as the country’s first openly gay cabinet official…and not a peep from @HRC.
— Gregory T. Angelo (@gregorytangelo) February 20, 2020
More:
From Andrew Sullivan, who is No Fan of our president:
The Human Rights Campaign’s Twitter feed has made no mention at all — even as they are rightly touting the first lesbian mother in Congress. Why is the first openly gay Cabinet member a nonevent? Because he’s a conservative. And to the activist left and too many of the Establishment liberals in the gay movement, that means he’s not really gay.
Ric Grenell just became the first-ever openly gay member of the Cabinet in U.S. history. You missed that? So did everyone else. Hate him or love him, it's a landmark. https://t.co/1imqE6pC3H
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) February 21, 2020
An example of the disparagement:
Hardcore partisan best known for brazenly lying about a terrorist attack weighs in: https://t.co/BgA6EKq1j2
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 21, 2020
5 Comments for “A Gay Milestone, Ignored or Disparaged”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Gregory Angelo’s whine about HRC notwithstanding, this story is not going to have a good ending, and Ambassador Grenell is as likely as not to have his reputation tarnished before this is over.
The mainstream news media is reporting that Ambassador Grenell’s termporary appointment as Acting Director of National Intelligence is a direct result of President Trump’s fury over a briefing given to the House Intelligence Committee by Shelby Pierson (the intelligence community’s senior election security official), a briefing that advised Intelligence Committee members that Russia was actively interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to aid President Trump’s re-election.
President Trump promptly fired Joseph Maquire, the current Acting Director of National Intelligence, and appointed Ambassador Grenell as Acting Director without intention to formally nominate him for the post. Ambassador Grenell then named Kash Patel, a former aide to Devin Nunes apparently involved in preparation of the “Nunes Memo”, as a senior advisor.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what is likely to happen next. Ambassador Grenell, a fierce political ally of President Trump, will attempt to quash US intelligence concerning Russia’s attempts to influence the 2020 election in favor of the President, and, to the extent that he can given the temporary nature of his appointment, purge the intelligence community of senior personnel not politically loyal to the President.
Ambassador Grenell is not going to be successful trying to operate in the dark on this issue. As we are seeing in the DOJ, truth will out, sooner or later, and Ambassador Grenell is almost certain to join the ranks of formerly honorable people tarnished by President Trump.
I hope that I’m wrong about this, but I’ll bet I’m not.
posted by Jorge on
Well.
So I’ll think: is my life better for knowing that, say, Jim McGreevey (a lying scumbag of a politician and an adulterer and sexual harasser all in one) is gay? Well, I’ve learned a few things from it.
Calling this guy a cabinet official is a bit too much, though. He’s only acting, and President Trump seems to favor acting officials over confirmed officials.
posted by JohnInCA on
(A) Grenell will only be in the position for a few weeks before he is required, by law, to step-down.
(B) The position was only vacant because Trump was mad that our spy agencies told him the truth.
This may be “historic”, but for him being gay is the least of reasons why. It’s also not good news. At all.
Even if you like Trump, his inability to handle information he doesn’t like is a big fucking problem.
posted by Kosh III on
First cabinet member? Remember Donna Shalala? Janet Reno?
May not have been out but gaydar says……
I remember watching the (under-reported) March on Washington in 1993. One of the speakers called out Shalala calling for her to “come out.”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
That didn’t last long:
Not that anyone expected that Ambassador Grenell would be nominated or confirmed, so it is no big deal.