I can’t speak for “many at Boxturtle”; only for myself. And here is what I wrote when Ken Mehlman came out:

I think this is a good time for me to interject my own thoughts here. I definitely think that Mehlman should have come out earlier, and I fully believe that harsh criticisms of his tacit support for GOP gay-bashing during the 2004 and 2006 campaigns are fully warrented. I further believe that Mehlman has a lot of ground to cover in order to make up for his past sins.

I then went on to note that he had already begun making up for those past sins by chairing a fundraiser for Americans for Equal Rights (AFER), the organization behind the Prop 8 lawsuit. Which was no small thing, but as far as I was concerned was only a downpayment and not restitution in full. I finished with this:

Mehlman has a lot to make up for. The 2004 and 2006 campaigns that he was directly involved in — and in which he colluded or directed terrible vilificaiton directed toward fellow LGBT people — caused considerable damage to to his fellow Americans, and they will rightly demand accountability. In order to truly heal those wounds, that does need to be his next major step.

But as we wait for that to come (and we shouldn’t have to wait too long for it), let me say this: welcome out, Ken Mehlman. And let the rejoicing — and acts of contrition — begin.

I think this is entirely consistent with my approach to Hagel: He was a very bad character, he has now expressed a new opinion contrary to his previous positions, I’m glad he did it, and now I’m looking for more because he has a lot to make up for.

It’s the same approach I’ve taken with everyone I can think of, whether I liked them or not: Hagel, Mehlman, or even Obama, who , while never overtly anti-gay, I still expected him to follow up with actions after saying something positive.

If someone can find a case where I’ve strayed from that approach, please tell me. But I can’t think of one. If you find it, I’ll be very embarrassed — all of us fail from time to time to live up to the standards that we set for ourselves. But let’s be clear about this: I’m not holding HRC or LCR to a standard that I don’t consciously strive to meet myself.

“Nothing more to talk about here. Forget everything you remembered about him. He’s our pal now, and there’s no need to worry our pretty little heads over him anymore.

True, it’s much better than kicking Hagel to the curb. But it’s a far cry from anything that would remotely resemble clarity, let alone accountability. HRC has declared the subject closed and there’s nothing more to talk about.”

Well that is the attitude many at Boxturtle took when Ken Mehlman came out of the closet after pushing so many anti-marriage equality amendments in half of the country.

Granted Ken is not a politician, but instead a spokehole for politicians, however he did far more harm to LGBT families than Hagel ever did or said.

You’re not a very good predictor. Can you find any instance where, when an explicitly anti-gay politicians made a statement that puts him into an explicitly pro-gay position, I refused to give him the benefit of doubt?

I think I’ve tried very hard to give everyone a fair shake when they’ve made such a shift, regardless of the side of the aisle they come from. Because I think these shifts are important. LCR obviously doesn’t agree. And HRC goes overboard when these shifts happen. (I very much doubt HRC’s unconditional embrace would have occurred under the hypothetical situation you describe.)

Did you totally miss the news where Dick Armey told MediaMatters that FreedomWorks paid Beck and Limbaugh more to promote FreedomWorks than they raised from those men’s shows: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/04/exclusive-dick-armey-dishes-on-freedomworks-dea/192036 Or the $8 million Armey is peing paid to go away.

Did you totally miss the story about Dick Morris aggressively fundraising for what he referred to as his own PAC, Super PAC for America, which funneled 1.7 million dollars back through NewsMax to Morris for rental of the very same lists he used to promote Super PAC for America in the first place: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/07/lawyers-for-dick-morris-reportedly-confirm-supe/192073

I suspect more such stories are to come–of the lion’s share of money sent by small donors to Republican PACS going not to elect Republicans but to line the pockets of the right-wing commentariat and the people who run the Super PACs and to send out even more fundraising letters.

There are really only two choices here:

1. Either they kept their powder dry, hanging on to a couple hundred thousand dollars during an election with a number of very tight racers where additional spending might have made the difference in their preferred candidate winning.

2. Or some interested party or parties funneled and/or promises in excess of the ad cost to make it worth LCR’s while to ignore their director’s support for Hagel just a couple fo weeks earlier and run a full page ad in the NYT declaring Hagel “Wrong on Gay Rights. Wrong on Israel. Wrong on Iran.” It will probably be a long time if ever before we know how much beyond the ad buy cost was shoveled into LCR coffers to get them on board with publicly rejecting a man their head had so recently publicly supported, a man who was far more supportive of LGBT rights than the presidential candidate they had just endorsed in the previous election. But given the text of the NYT ad, it’s pretty self-evident that gay issues were not the overriding concern of LCR’s benefactors in this venture.

probably because I don’t believe that opposition to Hagel is by definition a partisan response. Though it might not seem evident here, our community is fairly evenly divided on Hagel, and the lines of difference are not based on party or ideology.

As I mentioned before, I can’t wait to find out about an “anonymous” large check that paid for their ads and hope they find James Hagee’s DNA on it.