I have no recollection of Frank endorsing Silber, nor can I find any credible indication that he did. Further, dipping into the Globe archives shows that Frank was still weathering the Steve Gobie scandal. It would seem odd for a politician who was trying to put the story of his gay prostitute ex-boyfriend behind him would endorse someone who had made opposition to gay rights part of his campaign. It would have been noteworthy.

Nor did Bay Windows cover a supposed endorsement of Silber by Barney Frank. Instead, they noted that the gay community came out strongly in support of William Weld. Once again, if a recently outed member of Congress were to endorse an outspoken anti-gay candidate, it would be news. If it had happened, I’d expect Bay Windows to not only report it, but to write an editorial criticizing Barney Frank. How could something like this leave no trace? No one saw fit to cover it?

But the Log Cabin Republicans, in endorsing Mitt Romney, are clearly partisan hacks. Gay group endorses anti-gay candidate. Yeah, that’s news.

I’ve heard your suggestion, and if it proves to be a more-that-a-single-instance trend I’ll consider it. I’m not a part of the organization and I have no inside track, but I know the history, the thinking and more than a few of the players. So I won’t be surprised if there is more to the story.

And with this choice, I would suggest that with Romney’s deplorable positions the LCR has, in fact, begun to rubber-stamp the GOP like GOProud in the way that the LCR of yore would not and did not. History is for historians. What LCR did today pisses me off.

I’m not pleased about this endorsement. You seem to be angry that I’m not displeased enough. If I called Frank a political hack (and he is) why haven’t I used the same language here?

But the difference between LCR and Barney Frank is that LCR does not endorse every single Republican that comes down the road and rail against every single Democrat. Frank is partisan EVERY time, no exception.

So I’m disappointed. But at the same time I know that LCR is not usually knee-jerk. So I’m leaving open room for this decision to have some conditions to their “conditional endorsement”. I don’t yet know. I hope so, but it may have just been a sell-out.

But even if it is a stupid entirely-partisan sell-out decision and has no discernible justification, that still doesn’t put them in the same category as Frank. He’s partisan always – with or without any attempt at justification.

A partisan hack is not the one who puts party first one time, it’s the one who puts party first all the time. Frank, yes. LCR – based on their history – not so much. Frank works as hard as he can against bipartisan efforts; Log Cabin works as hard as they can for them.

But if they start developing a pattern of rubber-stamping the Republican Party – like GOProud – and being the Anti-Democrats Club then I’ll be happy to make that call.

Be less baffled.

However, I simply cannot overlook the fact that Barney Frank is the worst kind of politician, a partisan hack. I can forgive hypocrisy, personal failure, even slick polished empty suits. But I have little use for a politician who tries to broker my community for his personal advancement or that of his party.

I have not been a fan of Mr. Frank since, in the 1990 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, he endorsed supported raging homophobe John Silber over Bill Weld*. That was a jaw-dropping, mind-numbing act of partisan absurdity. I’ve seen no reason to rejoin his fan club since. In fact, now that his career is ending, it seems that he has taken on a new role: throwing a wrench into any possible bipartisan movement that can be achieved on gay rights.

And that pisses me off.

Timothy, you truly baffle me. How is it that Frank is an “ultimate political hack” for not crossing party lines and supporting someone from the competing party over, in your words, a “raging homophobe” but the LCR’s endorsing of a candidate whose positions on LGBT issues is as bad as every other anti-gay candidate who has ever won a party’s nomination — whose positions are virtualy identical to an anti-gay candidate that the LCR refused to endorse in 2004 — allows LCR to escape the label of “ultimate political hacks”? You’re still pissed off over what Frank did twenty-two years ago, but just “dissapointed” at LCR doing exactly the same thing today? And comforted by the hint of a suggestion of maybe an unspecified promise somewhere that we may never learn about, which means that there’s a kind of a bright side to this?

The only bright side I can see is that there must be a pony around here somewhere.

Here’s what Standard & Poors gave as the reason for lowering the U.S. credit rating:

“Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade.”

S&P downgraded the U.S. because of a revised expectation that the Bush tax cuts would remain in place. They assumed this because of Republicans’ unwillingness to enact any measures raising revenue, and they completely slammed House Republicans — including Paul Ryan — for doing so.