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When the White House comes to the defense of HRC and Joe Solmonese in particular, it’s pretty clear both parties feel under siege. In an article “HRC head gets praise, flak for Obama’s gay-rights initiatives,” by Lonnae O’Neal Parker, it’s a surreal profile with great attention to detail to fawning, with a couple of dashes of criticism — classic CYA journalism.
If you can stomach the whole thing, click to page 3 and you’ll see an unbelievable quote from the man known as “The Fixer” in the Obama admin, Jim Messina.
Jim Messina is the White House deputy chief of staff. He calls the notion that Solmonese should be calling for picket lines “bull[expletive].”
“I’ve been in Washington 15 years and have seen many different organizations, and I would rate Joe and the HRC as one of the top,” he says. “He’s been helpful in working for a shared agenda, and been honest when he disagrees, and that’s what you want — someone who gets things done and tells you when he disagrees.
Well, as you see in the right sidebar, I’m holding Joe to his promise that he made at the HRC Carolinas dinner that DADT repeal will occur in 2010. I’m sure Jim Messina knows full well what’s in store.
Besides, what else is Messina going to say? Messina is the man who sits down in private meetings with Solmonese and HRC’s David Smith and tells them how all things LGBT are going to be done, i.e., whether DADT repeal will be in the DOD authorization bill, and when and how the Obama administration is going to advocate publicly on any other policy affecting LGBTs. For Messina, Joe and David are the good gays; online and offline activists are distractions from the inside game.
That’s why the President was upset at the civil disobedience going on outside the White House yesterday — Joe, as the face of the LGBT movement on the Hill, can’t do anything to stop the grassroots actions online or off.
Solmonese can only take angry calls from the White House complaining about the “mess” activists are making and do, in some sort of Sally Field imitation and ask whether the WH still likes them.” You really, really like me?” Otherwise, access may be cut off, the champagne and cocktail invites would dry up. But this is all essential to building relationships, the collateral duties of being our advocacy org on the Hill; we shouldn’t make note of such things because this is how things get done. Be patient.
But while LGBTs in flyover country twist in the wind, waiting for basic rights, let’s be mindful of how it’s hard work making six figures, partying with Kathy Griffin, wearing Dolce and Gabbana, flying to London to talk about HRC’s achievements in the U.S., and taking criticism for the work he does for LGBTs.
He thinks he’s winning the fight over achieving gay equality, but calls the struggle bittersweet.“There’s my standard answer: that it’s the nature of social change, and you can’t be the biggest organization in the movement and not expect that people aren’t going to aim their frustration at me.”
“It’s hard not to have it occasionally get you down and not have it occasionally hurt your feelings. If I try to filter the constructive from the non-constructive . . . I think it makes me better. And I think it makes all of us do a better job. ‘Us’ — ‘Gay Inc.,’ as it were, the people at the table — and ‘us’ — the armchair activists, bloggers and people who are engaged in civil disobedience. If it’s a meaningful exchange, I think it can’t help but make you better.”
Don’t get me wrong, we need HRC, or rather an organization that is positioned like HRC, to do effective advocacy that has the juice to push an administration to act, as we noted before about the power and push of the NRA.
I see no anger, no press releases with even faint praise for the independent grassroots activists for raising the profile of DADT repeal, garnering national MSM attention to the issue in a very personal way.
No one is asking him to handcuff himself to the WH fence, but certainly HRC can tell the President, look this is a movement of many passionate voices and all have a legitimate role to play. They are entitled to express these views — you should consider acting on that passion for equality.
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Just an FYI: The Sirius XM LGBT Leadership Town Hall is tomorrow and I’ll be in DC for the panel with National Gay & Lesbian Task Force executive director Rea Carey; National Center for Transgender Equality executive director Mara Keisling; Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese; Servicemembers Legal Defense Network executive director Aubrey Sarvis; and former Clinton White House advisor on gay rights Richard Socarides.
Joe and the Volcano
Joe Solmonese’s appearance has been a touch-and-go matter this week as he was, as I said above, in London, where the he was stranded by the result of the volcanic eruption and ash grounding air travel. Mike Signorile has informed me that Joe will appear via BBC link up (at this time I think it’s video and audio, but it’s not finalized).
10 Comments
“someone who gets things done”?I guess that makes him, given his record, little more than a fluffer.
Hon, a fluffer is useful….Joe Solmonese is USELESS. That’s why I cut off HRC years ago.
The article was a blow job in printAnd its a clear signal as to how the WaPo will be slanting toward HRC’s corporate line when the ENDA trans-expunging gets up to full speed. (Is ‘Lonnae O’Neal Parker’ a pen name for Jonathan Capehart?)
The criticism of HRC / Pee Wee that the article contained was de minimis – and the only mention of trans-anything was an oblique reference (by Pee Wee himself) to “pro-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people in Congress.”
Yes, all ye hurlers of the trans-jacking canard, heave forth. But, that will only demonstrate how objectivity-free you are.
A 1786-word glorification of the gay-corporate status quo’s poster boy – and not one mention of perhaps the most well-documented instance of he and his organization not being worthy of anyone’s trust? And not one mention of what will again be the major flashpoint that divides the working class from those who are positioned to benefit from corporate-gay-defined ‘pragmatism’?
I’ll ‘jack’ any thread that thinks that isn’t relevant to any analysis of Pee Wee’s Play-With-the-A-Gays-House – and make no apologies for it.
I’m pretty annoyedthat I didn’t get an invite to the town hall, I applied and everything but I guess there was overwhelming demand. I hope people will be liveblogging it or something!
HRC will have no credibility…until Joe Slimonese either steps down or steps up. You can see that he’s in the bullpen, warming up his “throw them under the bus” arm. He’s a proven closer on that count.
We really need to change this dramaCall me crazy, but this seems like more of a pissing contest between the establishment and the grass roots for who is the more relevant player in something that just isn’t a game to anyone, except maybe the current Administration. And Messina–OMG, he just seems to me to be simply stirring the pot and genuflecting attention away from his constant egotistical fumbling and fouling out of anything LGBT related that runs through the administration all the while doing more blocking than anyone thinks is necessary. The man is a butt crack on the face the administration and seems to continue to spew more noxious fumes than helpful effects. No surprise considering he has been a Washington insider for so many damn years and so little of that time has been dedicated to the needs of the glbt community. Almost seems like his sexuality didn’t seem to service as important until the job he currently holds did. Which makes him no more qualified to do his job well them his sexuality would qualify him to be a good florist.
I feel for Joe however, simply because even when this order was announced by the administration, it was easy to see his hands had been all over it. It was a solid and sensitive piece of work and would have proved far more meaningful if the administration wasn’t attempting to misuse it as a way to mollify those challenging them on dadt repeal, which they so boldly promised not only during the election but in the state of the union this very year. Once again Joe and the HRC look absolutely weak with mud on their face because the administration is attempting to both bamboozle and isolate our entire community like a closet case trying to pass off his gay lover as “just a friend”. I am no insider on either the establishment side or the grassroots side but even I can see that the jist of the articles is that it takes everyone in every way to get the job done. Joe is wrong in assuming that he should not be the target of grass root ire, when you come of that weak you get what you deserve. And there are other ways to support the grass roots which the HRC hasn’t even considered that would go along way in making both sides effective against the middle. However, as long as the Administration keeps running the ball up the middle the roots and the establishment are gonna stay divided.
Truth is we need to change some of the rules and realize another simple truth: When this is all over we have to live with each other. We need to dial back the animosity and give people the credit they are do as much as we are willing to deliver the criticism we think they deserve. HCR is doing some good work. Only they have gotten to hide bound on doing things in subtle little steps and it just isn’t that kind of world anymore. By the same token the grassroots can only hope for erratic victories and a lot of frustrating loses without the support of Gay inc in solid ways: Like maybe a bail fund! It’s great that they have a seat at the table but just maybe they need to go to more than one meeting. How about setting a table for the grass roots and gay inc to work all of this bullshit out so we can get back to the real battle? The battle for all of our civil rights.
Mindeleh….A fluffer’s only as good as the wood, and we’re the only ones getting shafted.
am I the only one disturbed they quoted the founder of Queerty?If the mainstream media considers them a viable source and reflection of gay people, we won’t be gaining allies any time soon.
Yup. And that Dolce and Gabbana wearing SOB has a lot to do with us getting shafted. It’s high damn time HRC got the shaft instead.
Bullsh*it. What has HRC done to further our cause? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE? Not one f*cking thing, especially where it COUNTS-at the federal level. Until they actually do something besides throw cocktail party fundraisers, they should expect us to get in their faces.