The brief tempest in a teapot over New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s harsh words for the House GOP in the wake of its refusal to provide disaster funding for his state has, thankfully, blown over. This sort of GOP apostasy, while pure catnip to the Village, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the real world, and is newsworthy only because such behavior is so drearily common.

Former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman served as campaign manager of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, notorious not only because it included an anti-gay platform and rhetoric, but because it relied on state campaigns to write legal discrimination against gays and lesbians into various state constitutions as a way to increase conservative voter turnout. So when Ken Mehlman publicly acknowledged in 2010 that he is a gay man, it was hardly surprising that he was widely criticized by pro-equality activists.

The fight for marriage for gays and lesbians is gaining support in every state and even among prominent Republicans, and the National Organization for Marrriage rallies this summer have galvanized marriage equality advocates.

Ken Mehlman left the gay closet earlier this week, asking for understanding if not support from the glbt community. That would be easier to find if Mehlman demonstrated a bit of understanding of that community and the toll that the Bush White House and RNC took on it while Mehlman was working there. No matter how much he did in his Off-The-Record political closet, it’s going to be hard to overcome what happened on the record.