HEADLINE SAYS, "OBAMA CAN'T SWIM." The first U.S. President to declare his support for gay marriage is getting a predictable reaction from idiots. I think Gerard Vanderleun deserves some sort of prize, though. His first rapid response was that Obama is gay:

As the country's majorities again confirm at the ballot box they are not in favor of gay "marriage," the nation's ostensible leader continues an evolutionary decloseting whose speed is lapped, so to speak, by the platypus. The delay is puzzling to me. Given the fact that Obama is the gayest straight man ever to hold the office of the president, I fail to see what the problem is in his coming out of the closet on a rocket...

Gee whiz. I wonder if Obama will come out or not. He could of course avoid taking a "position" simply giving Andrew Sullivan one hot evening in the Lincoln Bedroom and leaking the photographs to Blueboy.com, but some things are just too revolting to evolve into.

Vanderleun then stuck up an old post in which he pretended to be cool with gay marriage ("can't we take a step back and draw a deep breath, smell the winds of change and admit that Gay Marriage is a done deal?"), while describing himself (quite unnecessarily) as "compulsively heterosexual."

This kind of nutshells the schtick all around: It's not that they're against gay people (notwithstanding that only this morning they were beating their chests over the defeat of gay marriage and civil unions in North Carolina) -- it's all about the flip-flopping, or the attack on religion ("BREAKING: Obama casts faith aside," "Obama Continues Attacks On Christian Church... He just threw MILLIONS of Christian Americans under the bus," etc), or Obama is looking for "gay money" or some shit.

It would be one thing, a very small thing, if you could believe for a nanosecond that all these guys who say they have nothing against gay people would actually be glad marriage equality got a little closer to the goal line so long as Obama could be denied any credit for it.  But they don't care about that; as we saw with the Osama Bin Laden hit, they don't care about anything except winning.

Obama's a politician, but at least he's playing out his string in the right direction. The other guys are more like those deranged spouses who'll shoot up a crowded room just to get a bead on the one who made them feel small.

UPDATE. BTW 2nding this.

UPDATE 2. I mean, come on -- Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator:

Now I happen to support same sex marriage. But Obama is only supporting it because it is now politically expedient for him to do so.

This isn't Murder in the Cathedral, it's American politics. Lincoln didn't issue the Emancipation Proclamation till halfway through the Civil War. We take what we can get when we can get it.

Also, Goldstein seems to think Obama is planning a Grover Cleveland, or maybe a John Quincy Adams:

But let's say Obama loses in November. He has a ready made excuse for his defeat. Obama can say that the forces of darkness (i.e. opponents of gay marriage) are to blame for his defeat while patting himself on the back for his "courage" in supporting same sex marriage. It also helps to position him for a comeback in 2016 or 2020. Make no mistake. If Obama loses this fall it won't be the last we see of him. By that time with a greater presence of voters born after 1980 chances are there will be more voters in favor of gay marriage which would give Obama an opportunity to claim he was ahead of the curve.

"Claim he was ahead of the curve" is a hell of a thing to say under the circumstances. But you know you've really gone off the edge of the table when you're accusing a sitting U.S. President of supporting gay marriage in an election year so he can win some other election. Maybe next they'll accuse him of angling for U.N. Secretary-General.

UPDATE 3. I might have known: In comments (which are excellent BTW) sxp151 informs me that Niles Gardiner already accused Obama of angling for U.N. Secretary-General:

President Obama seems increasingly uncomfortable in domestic US settings, but highly energised when speaking abroad, especially to audiences that are traditionally anti-American. Which is why, if he loses in 2012, which is now increasingly likely, he might see the position of UN Secretary General as a natural fit.

It bothers me, because I'm just trying to get laughs, and they're trying to take over the world. I should have the advantage.