So, if a man working in the “news” industry (who happens to be gay) concedes a conservative’s point about the president’s whining he is betraying gay people?

Earlier today, Bruce e-mailed me, alerting me to Ed Morrisey’s post where that one-time CPAC blogger of the year reports:

On Sunday evening, CNN’s Don Lemon told viewers that “people like Sarah Palin have a point” when they say that Barack Obama needs to stop blaming everyone else for the shortcomings in his own performance, including the economy.

Read the whole thing.  Note that the telegenic CNN anchor was not conceding a conservative’s point on a gay-specific issue. Still, as Morrissey reports, several bloggers to reference his sexuality in attacking him for his concession:

@donlemoncnn If you think the Right will make you their Pet Gay, they won’t. Obama is standing up 4 U & don’t forget who you are.—
Kees Valderol (@keesvalderol) April 24, 2012

@theosmelek @Lezlie61 @DonLemonCNN He’s a black gay man and a RW tool for a buck. His boyfriend is a CNN higher up too.—
Annie Lawton (@CurlynDoris) April 23, 2012

@donlemoncnn Little Gay kids are committing suicide because of the Right Wing. You could make an impact. You’re a wimp.—
Fritz Alverez (@FritzAlverez) April 24, 2012

Guess to these folks when you acknowledge a conservative critique of Obama you are somehow betraying gay people.  We gay conservatives have heard such notions before.  Seems that’s what happens when you have so politicized your sexuality — that any departure from left-wing ideology must needs make a gay man a “tool.”

Consistent with conservative principles as articulated by the Republican Party at least since its founding — and particularly in the post-Civil War era as well as in the last third of the preceding century (roughly synchronous with the rise of Ronald Reagan), we should favor laws which do not distinguish based on race, religion, sexual orientation or any other similar factor differentiating one human being from another.

We shouldn’t ask government to sanction our sexual orientation, but do ask that it not condemn it.  We don’t need validation from the state to live freely.  And it is not warranted for the state to punish us for our difference — nor for acting upon our sexual/emotional longings for affection and intimacy.

We ask simply to be treated as human beings with each individual retaining the right to determine his destiny.

And by not asking for privileges based on our difference, we make clearer our commitment to freedom (and indeed to the ideal of equality under the law), to the state leaving each man, each woman alone to determine his, to determine her own destiny.  At the same time, we reaffirm the principles which have made this nation great, have made it strong and made it a shining example for those seeking freedom from oppressive regimes and seeking to replace such regimes with more equitable administrations.

In short, by not asking for anything from the government, we lead by example, reminding all Americans that we don’t need favors from the state in order to seek out opportunities, fulfill our own destines and pursue our own happiness, on our own or together with individuals with whom we choose to associate as part of groups we choose to join.

More on this anon.

NB: Tweaked the text to make it a bit bolder.

In December, we reported (along with other conservative bloggers) that a Media-hyped global warming “skeptic” was no such thing.

Wonder if Yahoo! (who led with a story about said supposed skeptic) will similarly hype this story about a global warming alarmist recanting:

Environmental scientist James Lovelock, renowned for his terrifying predictions of climate change’s deadly impact on the planet, has gone back on his previous claims, admitting they were ‘alarmist’.

Lovelock admits he “made a mistake”:

The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. . . .  We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear cut, but it hasn’t happened.

The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world

[The temperature] has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.

He told MSNBC that “he now thinks he had been ‘extrapolating too far.’”  (MSNBC link via Instapundit.)  Well, at least MSNBC has reported the story.  Wonder if other left-leaning media outlets will do the same.

Until the rise of Sarah Palin, the legacy media largely respected an unwritten rule of respect for prominent politicians:  their children were off limits.   Yeah,  they’d been whittling away at that standard for years, particularly with the progeny of particular Republicans.

Well, now since they’ve decided that a Republican’s progeny are fair game, why not his ancestors?

CNN, reports the Washington Examiner’s Charlie Spiering dispatched correspondent Gary Tuchman to Mexico to report on a “polygamy haven” frequented by Mitt Romney’s grandfather.  Also on that network, a former drinking buddy of mine weighed in on the matter:

I think that it ought to be off limits,” Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition noted last night to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, reminding Cooper of the history of polygamy in President Obama’s family as well.

“If polygamy is important to CNN,” muses Spiering, “why haven’t they sent correspondents to Indonesia to talk with Obama’s second-cousins about the history of polygamy in their family?”

Kudos to one CNN anchor who dared challenge a Democrat who brought up the issue of Romney’s progenitor’s polygamy.