Allahpundit at Hot Air noticed two reporters at The Huffington Post are reporting an "unexpected surge in support to place same-sex marriage on the Democratic Party platform." Will this end the media-enabled charade that Obama (the "committed Christian") opposes "marriage equality"? Former CNN contributor Hilary Rosen insisted “I find it impossible to believe that this presidential election will be completed without Barack Obama coming out strongly for marriage equality and Mitt Romney coming out strongly against it."
This internal party platform struggle -- which, as usual, is being conducted without the major networks or newspapers touching it -- might also be a factor in why the White House state dinner for British prime minister David Cameron had a "huge gay presence," including Rosen, who belongs to the same PR firm as former White House aide Anita Dunn. The gay magazine The Advocate was delighted to list fifteen prominent gays, including Obama bundlers and several journalists:
Andrew Sullivan, columnist/blogger for Daily Beast/Newsweek (attended with Aaron Tone)
Sally Susman, Executive Vice President of Policy, External Affairs, and Communications at Pfizer Inc. (attended with Robin Carter). Susman is a major fundraiser, or "bundler," for the Obama campaign.
Chad Griffin, incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign (attended with Jerome Fallon). Griffin is also a bundler for the Obama campaign.
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (attended with Louise Anne Rogers)
John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management (attended with Curtis Yee)
Bradley Kiley, director of the Office of Management and Administration (attended with James M Coley, Jr.)
Jonathan Capehart, columnist for the Washington Post (attended with Nicholas Schmit IV)
Wally Brewster, Chicago real estate executive and major fundraiser for the Obama campaign (attended with Robert Satawake)
Barry Karas, former HRC board member and an Obama campaign major fundraiser (attended with Bruce Green)
Tim Gill, founder of the Gill Foundation (attended with Scott Miller)
Hilary Rosen, partner in the political communications firm SKDKnickerbocker (attended with John Kelly)
Dana Perlman, HRC board member and Obama campaign major fundraiser (attended with Hugh Kinsellagh)
Joseph Falk, major fundraiser for the Obama campaign (attended with Mark Scott)
David Bohnett, philanthropist and founder of GeoCities (attended with Deborah Borda)
Fred Eychaner, media entrepreneur and major Democratic donor
On his blog at The Daily Beast, Sullivan bragged that many people mentioned at the dinner his shameless "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" Newsweek cover story and that he had a thrill up his leg from talking to George Clooney. He added:
I'm a proud Tory and a proud American (almost a citizen) and to see my political party bond so effortlessly with a president I endorsed and admire was enormously gratifying. It made me feel saner, amid today's Republican madness.
We're going to guess by "his political party" he means the British Tories, but the idea he isn't an Obama Democrat is as transparent a charade as Obama opposing the gay agenda.
Allahpundit argues "I found it impossible to believe that O’s entire first term would pass without a serious effort to reform entitlements given the fiscal quicksand we’re in, but here we are. What would it take for him to endorse legalizing gay marriage forthrightly before the election? Well, for starters, he’d need to be worried about the youth vote. This is an issue that could get them to perk up if it looks like turnout is sagging; the question is whether it’ll cost him more votes in older demographics, where turnout is almost always higher, than it’ll earn him in younger ones. If he was emphatically federalist about his position — he supports SSM but insists on a state’s right to decide for itself — that would cushion the blow to social conservatives, but I don’t know how he could take that stance given his opposition to Prop 8 in California."
The Huffington Post underlined how the media will whistle past this for Obama's convenience:
Publicly, this friction has yet to surface. During a conference call with reporters on March 7, Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina avoided the matter, saying that all decisions would be made by the convention’s platform committee, whose members had yet to even be chosen. “There's a process,” he said, “and the DNC will go through that, and we will have a platform."
