Who is Richard Grenell?
Mitt Romney’s new foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell, is causing a bit of a stir.
Over the weekend, media reports noted the newly-hired Grenell’s many inflammatory tweets offering very blunt takes on taboo political issues like Newt Gingrich’s multiple marriages, comparing MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to Justin Bieber, commenting on the appearance of various women including Hillary Clinton and Cindy McCain, and berating the media.
US Ambassador John Negroponte, right, speaks to his spokesman Richard Grenell after Security Council consultations regarding Iraq at United Nations headquarters Thursday, May 8, 2003. (AP Photo/David Karp)
(DAVID KARP – AP)
Grenell wound up scrubbing his Twitter account in response to the reports and apologizing.
In addition, Grenell’s hire has drawn the ire
of some in the social conservative movement because he is openly gay (though the resistance has yet to hit the mainstream of the social conservative movement in any significant way).
So just who is this newly relevant political hand?
Grenell is perhaps best known for being George W. Bush’s top spokesman at the United Nations, serving under Ambassadors John Negroponte, John Danforth, John Bolton and Zalmay Khalilzad.
He has also served as a spokesman for former San Diego mayor Susan Golding, former New York governor George Pataki, then-congressmen Mark Sanford (later known as the “Appalachian Trail”-hiking governor of South Carolina ), and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.). He also worked for Gingrich and the George H.W. Bush reelection campaign in the early 1990s.
Grenell, as evidenced by the Twitter controversy, has earned a reputation as a polarizing figure in the world of the press.
The liberal Village Voice in 2003 detailed complaints about Grenell — anonymous ones, albeit — from the press covering the U.N. accusing him of being overbearing.
But even in that report, at least one journalist defended Grenell as a skilled communicator just doing his job.
“I recognize that he is a master of spin,” said Raghida Dergham, the U.N. correspondent for the Arab newspaper Al Hayat. “But I find him accessible, knowledgeable, and never condescending. We
You can read the rest of this article at:: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=8f97d799c3a17c9e16c66bb9784cedd6
Short URL: http://thepresidency.us/?p=15158
Posted by RobertButler
on Apr 24 2012. Filed under 2012 Presidential Campaign.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
