Anyone who paid any attention to politics in the last ten years knew instantly upon seeing his smarmy pig mug that GW Bush’s campaign manager Ken Mehlman was gayer than George Michael in a sling at the White Party. Well, looky here: he’s finally come out of the closet in an interview with The Atlantic!
“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”
Aww, he’s happy now! Isn’t that sweet? ACTUALLY NO! As BlogActive’s Mike Rogers reminds us in a truly epic post, Mehlman, along with Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove, was the engineer of the 2004 Bush election, which Rogers rightly calls “the most homophobic national campaign in history.” (If you’ll remember, anti-gay amendments were on the ballot all over the US that year, all in a shameless bid to bring homophobes to the polls so that they would cast their gross votes for W while they were there.)
Well, Ken would like you to know that he’s vewwwy vewwwy sowwwy for selling his brothers down the river. Sort of:
“Look, I have a lot of friends who ask questions and who are angry about it. I understand that folks are angry, I don’t know that you can change the past. As I’ve said, one thing I regret a lot is the fact that I wasn’t in the position I am today where I was comfortable with this part of my life, where I was able to be an advocate against that [strategy] and able to be someone who argued against it. I can’t change that – it is something I wish I could and I can only try to be helpful in the future.”
Jeez, he has friends? F*ck you too, Ken! And an important reminder to all gays reading this blog: if you happen to encounter this person in the wild, no matter how drunk you are, do not under any circumstances get down with this traitorous asshole! (I know, I know, it would be harder if he wasn’t so butt-ugly.)
This of course brings back to the important question I’ve been grappling with since the day I started blogging: what do you call a gay Uncle Tom?
[The Atlantic]
[BlogActive]
[The Advocate]
To t-fro: The process by which advertisements end up on our site is a long and complicated one, and often relies on keywords that can trigger either side of the political spectrum. For example, B-Mad’s post about why gays should not vote Republican uses the word “Republican,” which Google Adsense then might interpret to mean that an ad for a Republican candidate would be a good thing to serve on our site.
It’s out of our control, and ultimately everyone has to make up their own mind anyway, which I’m sure you will!
xo F
Why am I seeing an anti-Russ Feingold ad on your website if you’re so concerned with being anti-Republican?
You’re right truspeek– it’s wrong and unamerican for politicians to be held accountable for their actions. that’s what free speech is all about. never mind!!!
What makes you the great judge of someone’s life, shithead?
It is okay to be a gay conservative. It is not okay to campaign at the expense of gay equality. Maybe he’s for small government. Maybe he’s for less taxes. Well if he were, he should have campaigned and won an election on those issues. He should not have fanned the flames of homophobia as a means to an end. And speaking of fanned flames… I have no doubt the same voters he courted are now condemning him to hell. Remember the homophobes who carried “Burn in Hell” signs at Matthew Shephard’s funeral? Those are the voters he courted, perhaps that is the company he should now be forced to keep.
I think post like these are sad. Why is there so much pressure from the gay “community” to subscribe to the same set of ideals and social norms. I thought the point of being gay was that you prefer to love someone of the same sex … not become a walking liberal cliche. Not all gays act, think, or vote the same way. Get over it. The real sad part of this is that this post is proof that being different from the social norm doesn’t make you any less hateful or short-sighted. Wake up people. It’s not about politics, it’s about respecting the wide variety of people that exist in this world…even if they don’t think just like you.
Watch! We will get all the OMG…he is so hot!…OMG….he is so cute comments in one…two…three…
I think this is a non-story. Gay people are allowed to be conservative. Maybe he believes in limited government strong military might low taxes maybe he is against abortion. That doesn’t mean he personally believes or wanted to stop gay marriage. Also, he was a manager for a campaign, a great job, maybe he was just doing it for the cash. Ultimately I’m tired of people dehumanizing gay people that don’t COMPLETELY agree with all the issues they believe in. So he was conservative? So what? He’s out and I wish him the best of luck. Just to let you know, I voted for obama and consider myself very liberal.
What do you cal an Gay Uncle Tom? How about an “Uncle Ken”? Seriously, this has been happening so much lately, we need a demeaning label for these douchebags… I wonder how Ken would feel knowing he created a term for a backstabbing closeted betrayer to his own people? Is this how he’d want to be remembered? Probably not…(More reason to make it stick)