Richard Grenell

Remember how, earlier this month, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried to get a kinda-sort credit for being gay-friendly when he hired Roy Cohn Award recipient Richard Grenell to be his go-to guy for foreign policy?

Well, even a self-hating gay man was too much for the TheoCons who make up the GOP’s voter and volunteer base, so out he goes.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Grenell decided to resign after being kept under wraps during a time when national security issues, including the president’s ad concerning Osama bin Laden, had emerged front and center in the campaign.

Pieces in two conservative publications, the National Review and Daily Caller, reflected the uproar by some social conservatives over the appointment.

In the National Review, Matthew J. Franck wrote late last week: “Suppose Barack Obama comes out — as Grenell wishes he would — in favor of same-sex marriage in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. How fast and how publicly will Richard Grenell decamp from Romney to Obama?”

Remember, the National Review is supposedly the acme of level-headed conservative political thought and intellectual achievement. And this is what they think of Richard Grenell. If this is what they’re saying, imagine what the “values voters” are saying.

Buh-bye, Richard.