At least one blogger isn't cheering yesterday's news that President Obama has nominated an openly gay lawyer for ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

Openly gay The Atlantic political commentator Andrew Sullivan is calling the pick a nod to gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and too little, too late.

“So we now have the slogan that sums up the Obama record on gay rights: Not much worse than Bush,” Sullivan wrote in a post titled We Get A Gay Ambassador!

“[T]he Democratic party which takes our money and counts on our votes still thinks we can be fobbed off with gestures and symbols and a nice speech,” he added, referring to Obama's planned keynote speech Saturday at the HRC's annual fundraiser.

HRC President Joe Solmonese called the choice “good for America.”

“And, of course, HRC loves nothing more than that and they will milk this for more money and even plusher buildings and higher salaries for their professional Washington careerists, even as they get nothing done or passed,” Sullivan continued. “They like it that way. It keeps them in business. And the love-fest Saturday night will be sick-making.”

But Earl Ofari Hutchinson's Huffington Post blog post titled Obama Is Gay's Best Friend – To Say Otherwise Is Shortsighted, Insulting And Just Plain Dumb, which appeared on the same day, argues just the opposite.

“Obama is not a hypocrite or betrayer on gay rights simply because he does not back gay marriage,” Hutchinson says. “Whenever he's been asked he's made it clear that he strongly believes that the only marriage that can be called marriage is between a man and a woman. This has nothing to do with his solid, and at times outspoken, support for anti-discrimination, civility, and just plain human respect for gay rights.”

“Obama is the best friend that gays have had in the White House – ever,” he adds.

Sullivan disagrees, saying that what Obama has done – speechmaking mostly – is simply window dressing.

“[W]e're not equals to this president or his party, whatever he says and however well he puts it. … He knows what to do. And he refuses to do it. That's more eloquent than any speech ever could be.”