Bryan Fischer
The Atlantic Wire blames your humble servant for Obama flop on gay marriage
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Do you want to know who to blame for President Obama's Etch-A-Sketch flop on gay marriage? According to the winger-left website, The Atlantic Wire, it's all my fault.
It's hard — in fact, in my judgment, impossible — to believe, but there it is.
The Atlantic's theory is based on the so-called Butterfly Effect, the theory that events that seem comparatively unimportant at the time can have a subsequent and unexpectedly large impact on historical events. A butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can ultimately trigger a typhoon on the other, or so the theory goes.
Here are the opening two paragraphs in what Elspeth Reeve dubs her "Media Chaos Theory" (The title of her piece: From an Anti-Gay Activist to Joe Biden to Barack Obama):
Though most people assumed President Obama privately supported gay marriage, many were surprised he decided to say so publicly, especially now. But before the story gets rewritten, let's take a look at the chain of events in the recent history of the news cycle that led to Wednesday's announcement, which all trace back to one man: anti-gay Christian activist, Bryan Fischer.
Sure, a lot of people have speculated and joked that Joe Biden was the one who pushed Obama to make a declaration of where he stood on gay marriage sooner than his reelection campaign may have liked. But he would never have been asked about the issue on Meet the Press if not for Fischer, who, you might recall, was the guy on Twitter who was so outraged that Mitt Romney hired a gay person to work on his campaign that his tweets got a lot of notice. But before we get to him, lets (sic) move backwards.
Then Ms. Reeve unspools her reverse chronology, the shorter version of which is this:
May 9: Obama comes out for gay marriage.
May 8-9: But Obama only had to do that because Jay Carney got tied up in knots giving blitheringly incoherent answers for two days to questions from the press on gay marriage.
May 7: But Carney only had to deal with the issue because Joe Biden, the Walking Gaffe Machine, came out for gay marriage on Meet the Press. And Biden only did that in response to a question about his attacks on Mitt Romney for being too socially conservative.
May 1: But the only reason Biden was attacking Romney on social issues on May 7 is that homosexual activist Richard Grenell resigned from Romney's staff on May 1.
April 27: But the only reason Grenell resigned was because of heat generated by comments from Tony Perkins and National Review's Matthew J. Franck.
April 23: But Perkins and Franck only weighed in because of a weekend Twitter fight that I, joined by Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center, had with liberal tweeters.
April 20: But this Twitter war only broke out because I, your humble correspondent, sent out a single, solitary, lonely Tweet on April 20.
Here are the two concluding paragraphs of Ms. Reeve's piece:
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 Romney take unpopular positions on gay rights, like calling for Don't Ask Don't Tell to return.
In the end, the contribution of Bryan 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 (Note: this fills me with profound sadness. But anon. BF). 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 — i.e. 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.
QED, I guess.
And by the way, contrary to a column written by Jonah Goldberg, I never claimed Grenell's scalp. Eric Ferhnstrom, Romney's spokesman, raced into my office and tacked it on my wall.
But, assuming just for the sake of argument that Ferhnstrom is right, that Grenell resigned because of me (again, something I have never claimed), then I did the governor a huge favor. He did not have to spend yesterday answering awkward questions about Richard Grenell, and Richard Grenell did not have to spend yesterday answering awkward questions about Mitt Romney.
Governor, you're welcome. As I have said before, I am the best friend he has in the world.
And a note for Jonah Goldberg: Jonah, I am not taking credit for a single, solitary anything. The Atlantic Wire is assigning all the credit (or blame) here. If you got a problem with that, attack the Atlantic Wire, not me.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
May 11, 2012
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Do you want to know who to blame for President Obama's Etch-A-Sketch flop on gay marriage? According to the winger-left website, The Atlantic Wire, it's all my fault.
It's hard — in fact, in my judgment, impossible — to believe, but there it is.
The Atlantic's theory is based on the so-called Butterfly Effect, the theory that events that seem comparatively unimportant at the time can have a subsequent and unexpectedly large impact on historical events. A butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can ultimately trigger a typhoon on the other, or so the theory goes.
Here are the opening two paragraphs in what Elspeth Reeve dubs her "Media Chaos Theory" (The title of her piece: From an Anti-Gay Activist to Joe Biden to Barack Obama):
Though most people assumed President Obama privately supported gay marriage, many were surprised he decided to say so publicly, especially now. But before the story gets rewritten, let's take a look at the chain of events in the recent history of the news cycle that led to Wednesday's announcement, which all trace back to one man: anti-gay Christian activist, Bryan Fischer.
Sure, a lot of people have speculated and joked that Joe Biden was the one who pushed Obama to make a declaration of where he stood on gay marriage sooner than his reelection campaign may have liked. But he would never have been asked about the issue on Meet the Press if not for Fischer, who, you might recall, was the guy on Twitter who was so outraged that Mitt Romney hired a gay person to work on his campaign that his tweets got a lot of notice. But before we get to him, lets (sic) move backwards.
Then Ms. Reeve unspools her reverse chronology, the shorter version of which is this:
May 9: Obama comes out for gay marriage.
May 8-9: But Obama only had to do that because Jay Carney got tied up in knots giving blitheringly incoherent answers for two days to questions from the press on gay marriage.
May 7: But Carney only had to deal with the issue because Joe Biden, the Walking Gaffe Machine, came out for gay marriage on Meet the Press. And Biden only did that in response to a question about his attacks on Mitt Romney for being too socially conservative.
May 1: But the only reason Biden was attacking Romney on social issues on May 7 is that homosexual activist Richard Grenell resigned from Romney's staff on May 1.
April 27: But the only reason Grenell resigned was because of heat generated by comments from Tony Perkins and National Review's Matthew J. Franck.
April 23: But Perkins and Franck only weighed in because of a weekend Twitter fight that I, joined by Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center, had with liberal tweeters.
April 20: But this Twitter war only broke out because I, your humble correspondent, sent out a single, solitary, lonely Tweet on April 20.
Here are the two concluding paragraphs of Ms. Reeve's piece:
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 Romney take unpopular positions on gay rights, like calling for Don't Ask Don't Tell to return.
In the end, the contribution of Bryan 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 (Note: this fills me with profound sadness. But anon. BF). 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 — i.e. 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.
QED, I guess.
And by the way, contrary to a column written by Jonah Goldberg, I never claimed Grenell's scalp. Eric Ferhnstrom, Romney's spokesman, raced into my office and tacked it on my wall.
But, assuming just for the sake of argument that Ferhnstrom is right, that Grenell resigned because of me (again, something I have never claimed), then I did the governor a huge favor. He did not have to spend yesterday answering awkward questions about Richard Grenell, and Richard Grenell did not have to spend yesterday answering awkward questions about Mitt Romney.
Governor, you're welcome. As I have said before, I am the best friend he has in the world.
And a note for Jonah Goldberg: Jonah, I am not taking credit for a single, solitary anything. The Atlantic Wire is assigning all the credit (or blame) here. If you got a problem with that, attack the Atlantic Wire, not me.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
