Maureen Down neglected to mention Fred Karger, an openly gay man considering a run for president, in her op-ed on Jimmy Carter's optimism on America being ready for a gay president.

In a recent interview with the website BigThink.com, the former president equated gay rights to civil rights and said the nation is ready for an openly gay president.

“Step by step, we have realized that this issue of homosexuality has the same adverse and progressive elements as when we dealt with the race issue 50 years ago, 40 years ago,” Carter, 86, said in the eleven-minute-twenty-one-second videotaped interview.

“So I would say the country is getting acclimated to a president who might be female, who might obviously now be black and who might be as well a gay person.”

“I think the entire population of America has come tremendous strides forward in dealing with the issue of gays. And I would say that the answer is yes. I don't know about the next election, but I think in the near future.”

But Barney Frank, the longest-serving openly gay representative, disagreed.

“It's one thing to have a gay person in the abstract,” Frank told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. “It's another to see that person as part of a living, breathing couple. How would a gay presidential candidate have a celebratory kiss with his partner after winning the New Hampshire primary? The sight of two women kissing has not been as distressful to people as the sight of two men kissing.”

Dowd went on to suggest that an openly gay president remains a long-shot.

“There are no openly gay senators, governors, cabinet members or Supreme Court justices,” she wrote. “There are four openly gay Democratic House members, once David Cicilline of Rhode Island gets sworn in.”

But the always informed Dowd neglected to mention that an openly gay presidential candidate is already being cued up. And he's a Republican, to boot.

Fred Karger, the activist behind boycotts against big donors to California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, announced his plans during April's Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in New Orleans.

In an email to On Top Magazine, Karger said he didn't believe a gay president was such an outlandish idea.

“President Carter's comments are in line with national polls that show a half of Americans agree that the country is ready for an openly gay president,” Karger said.