April 27: The reason the controversy was still going was that it had been taken up by several more prominent conservatives, such as Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and the National Review's Matthew J. Franck.
April 23: The reason the Grenell hiring caught those guys' attention was that on April 23, Slate's Dave Weigel recapped a weekend Twitter fight between more-liberal tweeters and the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer and Media Research Center's Dan Gainor, who said that hiring a gay person was by definition a "move to the left."
April 20: The reason political bloggers had so much great material to work with was because Fischer condemned Grenell's hiring in the most-colorful language possible: "Romney picks out & loud gay as a spokesman. If personnel is policy, his message to the pro-family community: drop dead." Noting the Secret Service hooker scandal in Colombia, Fischer wrote in a column, "Given the propensity for members of the homosexual community to engage in frequent and anonymous sexual encounters, the risk to national security of having a homosexual in a high-ranking position with access to secret information is obvious." He demanded that Romney take unpopular positions on gay rights, like calling for don't ask, don't tell" to return.
In the end, the contribution of Fischer to Obama's speech will--just like that butterfly whose wings set off a typhoon on the other side of the world--be forgotten by history. But it's worth noting that Fischer got just the exact opposite effect than what he wanted: Instead of moving the political environment backward on gay rights--ie, making it a scandal for a presidential campaign to employ any openly gay people--he moved it way forward. Nevertheless, he was basking in his accomplishment (or at least the media attention) on Wednesday: "Can you imagine Romney having to field questions about Grenell today? Or Grenell fielding questions about Romney?" he tweeted.
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