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Yesterday, the Republican party had a problem. A man named Kirk Fordham, just-resigned chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, was completely messing up the narrative about who knew what and when in the leadership about the Internet sex farce antics of Rep. Mark Foley. So it was time to turn up the heat, one element of the strategy being to get into wider circulation that Fordham is gay, which would contribute the broader goal of conflating being gay with having an unhealthy interest in teenagers. But how do it while maintaining a claimed moral high ground?

Enter conservative blogger Gay Patriot in this long post to complain that (a) a liberal blogger has hold of "The List" of top-level Republican staffers who are gay, (b) even though liberal blogger has made clear he has no intention of using "The List" (which had been passed on to him), it's still an outrage, and (c)

The first casualty of the Gay GOP Witchhunt has occurred. Forced out by Democrats politicizing the Foley Affair. Statement by Kirk Fordham ...

Except that nothing in the post or indeed in Fordham's statement had made the slightest mention of him being gay. So in his claimed outrage at an alleged campaign of outing, Gay Patriot had "outed" him. To expand the circulation, the convenient link to the post from Glenn Reynolds --

GAY PATRIOT says that Democrats are descending into "sexual McCarthyism" in the wake of Foleygate, circulating lists of Republican Hill staffers who are presumed to be gay.

and soon the news is all over the place. With one last twist: it's not like Fordham personally cares very much, at least if Andrew Sullivan is to be believed:

But Fordham insists someone very high up was [told about Foley]. I guess we'll find out more soon. I also note that Fordham is openly gay. And like every openly gay man I know, is creeped out by Foley's conduct.

But of course this prosaic mention wouldn't help create the impression of a cabal of senior gay staffers creating all these problems for the party, which is why Sullivan is nearing (or has sought) excommunication from the Church of Bush.

A couple of final notes. Glenn Reynolds tried a related trick before, regarding Kos. And Gay Patriot, aka Bruce Carroll, triggered some long memories in Sullywatch a little while back (also here).

UPDATE: More evidence that there is an outing strategy on the right. The Corner also linked to the GP post. And Josh Marshall had noted the Republican strategy of pinning the whole mess on a gay cabal, which of course requires that the gay bit be made to sound like a secret. Finally, if Andrew Sullivan is going to condemn the tactic, he should note the role of some of his blogging allies in playing along with it.

FINAL UPDATE: Howard Kurtz, speaking on Washington Post radio on Friday late afternoon, seemed to imply that Fordham was "not totally out" in which case Gay Patriot -- and Sullivan -- pushed things farther than he would have wanted. Yet Gay Patriot continues to claim that any outing is being done by liberals.