The full story about Rick Grenell's resignation as Romney's recently hired national security spokesman has been aired in the New York Times, and it's not a pretty story for the Republicans and for the Romney campaign in particular.
Grenell has an impressive resume and is uniquely qualified to be Romney's adviser and spokesman in the area of foreign policy and national defense. He has worked in the Bush White House and at the U.N., including when John Bolton was Bush's recess-appointed ambassador to the U.N. And Bolton highly recommended him for this job and called to try to dissuade him from resigning.
The problem is that Grenell is openly gay and an outspoken proponent of gay marriage. His being gay did not bother Romney and his campaign, nor Bolton either for that matter. And he had agreed not to speak publicly about gay issues while working on the campaign.
It's becoming clearer that the mainstream Republicans are not anti-gay in feelings and in dealing with individuals on their team. But here's where the problem comes in. They're too scared of the power of the right wing, anti-gay ranting preachers -- who did oppose the hiring of Grenell. So they're fine with your being gay -- just shut up about it. Don't ask, don't tell all over again.
In Grenell's case, they tried to talk him out of resigning, but they wouldn't defend him and tell the anti-gay preachers to just get over it. The Romney campaign thought it would blow over soon, if only Grinell would keep a low profile for a while and not remind the preachers that he was the spokesman.
The last straw for Grinell was the instructions not to speak during a conference call he had arranged for the media to respond to Joe Biden's foreign policy speech -- an occasion in which he would ordinarily be a firebrand leading the attack rebuttal. His friends among the reporters wondered why he wasn't present during the call. In fact, he was on the call -- sitting silently and fuming.
He had already chafed at prior instructions to keep a low profile for a while. In fact, the Times article says he had already told the campaign he planned to resign because his position had become untenable.
Here's the line that makes me say this is more of a crack in the dam than a minor rift that will blow over. Six top aides called and tried to talk Grinell out of resigning. Several of them said they were "shocked" and couldn't understand why they couldn't persuade him to stay.
So they have no concept of someone acting out of integrity and refusing to pretend that he is a pariah that has to be hidden away when the crazy uncle comes to visit.
What does this say about the character at the core of the campaign? The same thing expressed by the Etch-a-Sketch metaphor. Maybe there's no there, there.
Ralph
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Jonathan Cohn, writing in The New Republic, essentially agrees with what I wrote here. He says that the Grinell situation was a litmus test for Romney - as to whether he is ever willing to stand up to the extremist voices in his own party.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is No. He is always cagey and calculated, trying to keep things just ambiguous enough that each side can think he's with them. He tries to be whatever you want him to be.
Slate's Will Saletan says: "The problem with Romney isn't that he keeps changing his mind . . . the problem is that he keeps changing his story."
As the prosecution's case unfolds in the courtroom, it seems that they do have a better case than we knew. Now his speech writer has testified that he told her that he knew about the money from wealthy donors to pay for his mistress -- he just didn't know all the details.
ReplyDeleteOther aides have also testified that Edwards did know. So it seems the case will hinge on whether the donations will be classified as campaign contributions.