A Gay Commander in Chief: Ready or Not?

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

WASHINGTON

Jimmy Carter is putting the out in outspokenness.

In an interview with bigthink.com, the former president was asked, “Is the country ready for a gay president?”

Even as John McCain and other ossified Republicans were staging last-minute maneuvers to torpedo the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, the 86-year-old Carter was envisioning a grander civil rights victory.

“I would say that the answer is yes,” he said. “I don’t know about the next election, but I think in the near future.”

The news that Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer will smooch in an upcoming movie about J. Edgar Hoover and his aide Clyde Tolson — buried near each other in the Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill — is a reminder of an “Advise and Consent” Washington where being a closeted gay official made you vulnerable to blackmail.

(More here.)