Congress appears poised to repeal the ban on gays in the military, with the quiet support of the White House and without opposition from the Pentagon, according to statements out from gay rights groups this evening.
The repeal is a careful dance: The Pentagon has remained publicly neutral in the process, while the Administration weighed in in a low-key, wonky, two-paragraph letter to Congress that makes no reference to the moral case for repeal. It is signed not by President Obama but by Budget Director Peter Orszag.
The effect of the public relations moves is to put the credit or blame for repeal on Congress and a group led by Senators Carl Levin and Joe Lieberman and Rep. Patrick Murphy. But the practical effect is the same: A military that, some time next year, will likely begin to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly.
And I bet there will be a very limited public freak-out by the GOP.
If he’d really cared, he would have signed an executive order on day one and said “F- You bigots,” then it would have counted and Democrats would be motivated to go to the polls. But this doing things through the legislature so it is permanent and official and successful- that’s not the hope and change we signed up for. Where’s the passion! Where’s his inner Truman FDR George Bush…
Joseph Nobles
Thank goodness.
I can’t go any further than that, because all I can think of are back door jokes.
Tom Hilton
Gosh, maybe he really does know what he’s doing.
TR
Just the same as Bush was.
No, worse!
No, worser than Hitler!
Karen
Don’t worry John, I’m sure the Firebaggers will find something else to hate him for.
Sheila
Still waters run deep.
Cat Lady
This is not great news for John McCain. Even bestest buddy Joe Lieberman has deserted him. Too bad so sad. Not.
Martin
Screw that, I’ve got all this Amero currency in my basement and no place to spend it. Fucker broke his promise!
Chyron HR
Peter Orszag… or ZERO REP STAG?
(You poor deluded fools.)
feebog
Once this passes I wonder what the next big whine from the Obama sucks, no matter what he does crowd will be. Frankly, I think he has dropped the ball on the Gulf spill disaster, but I’m not going to vote for Newt Gringrich or Mittens Romney because of that.
Midnight Marauder
@Karen:
We already know this.
gbear
Thank god that gay people will now have the freedom to be who they want to be and do what they want to do in the armed services.
Jay C
Well, while I think you’re semi-wrong here – I think the biggest freakout is going to come from the left: the ZOMG OBAMA SOLD US OUT HE’S WORSE THAN BUSH !!11!!!!!!!11! FDL clownshow types – any change to the present DADT policy outside of a Uganda-style total ban is going to send the Jesus-jumpers ballistic.
Just wait til the first serving officer feels impelled to resign (and probably run for Congress) over the affronts to his “conscience” or offense to his “religious” or “moral” sensibilities.
Just Some Fuckhead
You guys can manufacture resentment at the oddest times.
limniade
Actually, I think low-key is the way to go here. The last thing we need is some top-shelf right-winger like Rush or Palin to start trumpeting their latest line of bullshit about how this will endanger national security, which would make listeners call their congressmen about it, which would make said congressmen want to review the decision and table it for another 20 years because they don’t want to lose their next election. So hell yeah, sneak it under the radar while the Right is too busy blaming Obama for the oil spill.
Democrats never go to the polls anyway. They (we) just don’t. We find reasons to disagree about any little thing and then we protest by not voting. That’s what Democrats do. Why try to curry their favor with loud, obvious maneuvers when it only opens Obama up as a target? I’d rather Obama get things done than waste time trying to fulfill some fantasy that the Left will ever unite.
Linda Featheringill
So they are really going to pass it? Wow.
That was quiet. I didn’t even see it coming.
Hooray if it passes. Gay people have as much right as other folks to go out and get their fool heads shot off. [Okay. I’m a bit of a pacifist.]
Perhaps at some point in the future the military can come to terms with how much EVERYBODY hates to be the target of sexual harassment.
Lysana
I kept saying it. People did not listen. You kept saying it. People did not listen. And here we are.
Yes.
Linda Featheringill
@feebog:
Obama dropping the ball on the Gulf Oil Spill:
It sort of looks that way. Of course, if one of his dweeby scientists figures out a way to make the damn thing stop, I’ll forgive him for a lot.
Polar Bear Squares
No OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!!! tagline?
I always laugh my @$$ off when I see it.
Good point tho. I always see the comment on Americablog. We wanted CHANGE. Not change.
Sigh.
robertdsc
Fixed.
I’ll believe it when it passes. Not a moment before.
kay
‘ The White House announcement is a dramatic breakthrough in dismantling ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ The path forward crafted by the President, Department of Defense officials, and repeal leaders on Capitol Hill respects the ongoing work by the Pentagon on how to implement open service and allows for a vote this week. President Obama’s support and Secretary Gates’ buy-in should insure a winning vote, but we are not there yet. The votes still need to be worked and counted
‘
I’d call but my rep is a Republican. He never does anything at all. Wouldn’t hurt, though, if yours is not. They need constant soothing words or they get really scared and confused.
Warren Terra
And then he could have been just like Clinton! And maybe if, like Clinton, he’d done it instantly and in a showy fashion and without getting all his ducks in a row it could have blown up in his face politically (and in the face of advocates for equality substantially), and we might have gotten another decade-and-a-half of DADT or its kin. But maybe the Firebaggers (or, at the time, the proto-Firebaggers) would have felt their interests were being served, even as no progress was actually made.
MikeJ
@Jay C:
I wonder if that happened when Truman desegregated the services. Anybody know?
Sheila
I admit that I tend to believe that no one has the right to serve in the military because the military is filled with trained killers and I do not believe anyone has the right to take another’s life. However, I see no reason why gays should not have the same opportunities to act against universal brotherhood and sisterhood as anyone else, so I guess I welcome this as a sort of victory, even if it is a bit Pyrrhic. I had similar feelings about the women’s crusade to serve in combat.
NobodySpecial
How does this article correlate with your post?
Link
Don’t get me wrong – it’s good to have a President that seems to be making the right moves. But open implementation times leaves room for a future Republican administration to not finish the job.
Mike Kay
but, but… he’s a secret republican who’s worse than bush and Hitler, combined.
Mike Kay
@NobodySpecial: well, since obama has been in office only 1 year and 4 months, I doubt it will take 6 years and 8 months to finalize the implementation. Even then, I see a likely chance of another democrat succeeding obama in 2017, if only because he gop bench is non-existent.
fucen tarmal
the sad ass truth is, it has to be done a little bit low key, because the votes the dems need to convert on, aren’t at all sold on the concept…
it seems silly to many folks who lost the homophobic thing about the same time as our high school class rings, but a lot of people have never really gotten the message. they still think gay people will want to do dirty things to them, even when most members of the opposite gender won’t without financial considerations or deep affection. many people just don’t get it, and they aren’t all on the right.
Mike Kay
@Karen: they hated him before he took office, so why would they like him after he took office.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gbear:
Were you in the military?
Peter
So does every post from John come with a side-order of punching straw-hippies now?
Actually, no, it’s not a side-order, is it? It’s the main course.
Something bad happens: punch straw-hippies because you think they’ll blame Obama, instead of saying anything about the people who are actually to blame.
Something good happens: punch straw-hippies because you think they won’t credit Obama, instead of saying anything to credit Obama and other people who are actually responsible.
For someone who complains about the Democrats’ circular firing squad, you’re sure doing your bit to keep the shrapnel flying.
The Raven
My impression is that this is something of throwing the left a bone. It’s real, and–if it actually happens–it will be valuable, but it doesn’t make up for what we’ve seen in other areas.
Personally, I am not Obama’s dog. If you want me to recruit some wolves, now, I’m your bird.
Croak!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Linda Featheringill:
Did you see how long it actually took to close of the Ixtoc l” spill back in 1979? 10 months.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
You’re getting ahead here. First it has to pass Congress, then the future Republican administration will not finish the job.
The vote is supposedly Thursday.
ed
In the words of the late, great Denholm Elliott, “Can’t we have both?” Once this dealio quietly passes, maybe PrezMeister can wave his, uh, pen around as he signs and tell the haters to suck it. Sooner the better for maximum political payoff.
One would think so. But lately we’ve been hearing Rand Paul saying he didn’t like the Civil Rights Act, the Arizona Breathing While Not White Law, and the CNN hire who called a Supremo a “goat fucking child molester.” So we’ll see. Any and all freakout will reflect poorly on the Party of Lincoln (gay) in the long run. Which is nice.
ruemara
I’m cautiously optimistic. may it happen and may they not be deployed anywhere because we’ve suddenly all gone pacifist.
Brandon
At the very least Obama should wear a “Straight But Not Narrrow” t-shirt to the signing ceremony. If he doesn’t, “HE’S WORSE THAN BUSH!”
Splitting Image
It’s all 11-dimensional chess.
Obama timed this announcement to get Andrew Sullivan’s attention with a new shiny and make him quit asking Elena Kagan to out herself.
Allison W.
A bone to the Left? why does everything boil down to how you guys feel? Or what he’s done or not specifically for the Left?
This is about gay Americans and their civil rights, it isn’t about you.
Mnemosyne
@The Raven:
I was wondering who the first
personbird would be to trot out the notion that this law people have been screaming about overturning for almost 2 years is really no big deal after all so we can all ignore Obama signing it and scream about the other things he should be doing.I guess you drew the short straw.
Elisabeth
@Sheila:
heh. I joined to get a free education and to get out of my teeny home town. That I can shoot someone is just icing on the cake.
(Actually, I can’t shoot anyone; I was a computer nerd. And, I’d venture to say there are vast numbers of folks like me who learned to shoot to get out of basic training but haven’t picked up a gun since.)
gwangung
a) Folks shouldn’t dignify themselves with terms they have no right to.
b) They take great pride in wearing signs that say, “Hit me.”
So, yeah, pretty much.
blackwaterdog
Not fast enough, not loud enough, not confrontational enough and clearly not progressive enough. The usual Obama sell-out.
Some “progressives” are such….whatever……, they can’t see progress if it hits them in the nose.
lawguy
Two thoughts: Stopped clocks, and counting chickens prematurely.
aimai
@ed:
I think the GOP is in a transitional moment–the teabaggers don’t care about the gay thing (that much) and the teabaggers are the ones calling the tune at this moment. They are the storm troopers of the corporate owners of the GOP and they are totally fixated on taxes, guns, borders, and protecting (and attacking) the oil companies simultaneously, oh, and Tarp and bailouts. They don’t really care about the gayz although some of them do.
Plus, I think the GOP can’t decide which version of Obama they want to fight: the incompetent one or the all powerful one. My guess is that they haven’t yet figured out how to attack Obama over this without also implying that he controls the military and thus attacking the military. They took a stab at calling all the generals wholly owned and controlled by Obama but I think that remains a dangerous position for them and one they shy away from taking on full force. Partially because once they start kicking the army they fear they will go down like McCarthy went down after the Army hearings. Its one thing to ally yourself with the imaginary silent, ex military and anti gay majority in the country. Quite another to find yourself allying yourself with the teabaggers/tax evaders/cop killers/census refuseniks and against the rising crop of vets.
I think they don’t quite know what to do. we’ll have to see, as my old advisor used to say “which way the cat will jump.”
aimai
Comrade Kevin
Apparently that Evony game features leering at nude women through a shower door. Just how desperate are they?
RSR
I generally concur with the thought that Obama could be more active/present on some issues, including this one. As a senate candidate in 2004 he was will to drop the “We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.” line.
However, there’s the whole speak softly/big stick side. But was there a big stick?
You could ask *that question* on a whole host of issues with this administration?
Do they carry a big stick?
We’ve seen “moderate” successes on a number of fronts–moderate being applicable in political and quantitative realms–yet they often seem so tenuous. I wouldn’t mind the soft speaking if the stickwork seemed “bigger.”
Mike Kay
@Peter:
You guys can dish it out, but you sure can’t take it.
Here, have a pansy. it suits you so.
Heh!
NR
Here are some more details:
Color me skeptical. What’s to keep the Pentagon from publishing a study that says allowing gays to serve openly would destroy morale? Or simply delaying completion of the study until the twelfth of never?
If and when DADT is actually ended, I’ll give Obama and the Democrats the credit they deserve. But that’s not happening yet.
Elisabeth
@aimai:
Somehow they try to do both
depending on the day of the week and the issue.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Allison W.:
FTW.
@Peter:
He’s having a little fun. As for “straw-hippies”: they’re real, they’re there, they’re easy to overlook since they are a much smaller number than they believe themselves to be, but they’re there, and they make themselves eminently mockable. So we mock.
JG
The rampant immaturity in some of the posts and comments here is startling – John didn’t even link to firebag wanking and all of you are already dreaming up all sorts of things you think they will say and do. These caricatures of people to the left of the average commenter on this site may be fun but that doesn’t make them accurate.
Not to mention that John’s post is just an epic straw man.
Mike Kay
@RSR:
It’s in his pants.
A trillion dollar healthcare bill that grows after the first 10 years. plus an 800 billion stimulus bill and you guys whine about “moderate” success.
Mike Kay
@JG: everything you say may be true. but so what. if you can dish it out (“obama is a secret republican”, “a corporatist”, “worse than bush”) then you should be able to take it.
shilohsmama
@Peter:
::SMACK!!::
Did it hurt?
Martin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Shit, so Obama has experience fucking up oil recovery efforts and being a corporate apologist? What was his excuse for screwing that one up?
Mike Kay
@NR:
Color me skeptical, to borrow a phrase, that the hippies will ever give worse-than-bush-secret-republican-obama any credit.
Mike Kay
@Martin: fucking obama screwed up the 1979 spill as a high school senior. worse than bush.
kay
@NR:
I disagree. I think activists negotiated a good deal. The passage of the law makes the policy okay much more likely, but this method still shows some deference to the military, who will actually have to carry it out. They’ll need to be on-board, which was the point of the study. It could have languished in study-land forever. It seems as if the whole trick is to just keep moving.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Sadly, no. Every time a soldier a veteran or even a guy who once walked past a recruiting station stubs his toe it’ll be blamed on Fear of the Kw33r.
But so fucking what? I just wish the White House would pipe in the sounds of GOPers wailing and gnashing their teeth when the president signs off on the latest law that will ruin America 4evar!
Mike Kay
@The Raven:
right on cue. to the hippies overturning DADT is now a left over bone with no meat. how predictable. I year, 4 months, and 4 days into office and DADT has become yesterday’s toy/video game. You couldn’t bake this mockery if you tried. Congratulations, Veruca!
Kelly
Go fuck yourself Cole. You are the biggest Concern Troll on this issue.
ed
@aimai
I disagree. The Teabaggers are the GOP and vice versa. They hate Democrats, they hate Others, they hate what Rush Limbaugh tells them to hate. Most of all, they hate any Obama victories. And this would be a victory for Democrats and Obama (not to mention, you know, gay people and humanity in general). As with Rand Paul’s (pathetic) hating on the Civil Rights Act under the guise of some sort of libertarian bullshit, I predict that the Teabaggers/GOP will do all they can to dress up opposition as a question of Military Discipline (or whatever Rush et al tell them to believe). Prepare yourself for, “I don’t hate
fags/lezbosteh ghey, but…” and “I know it’s not ‘Politically Correct’, but…” nonsense. I bet allowing gays to openly serve will be heralded as yet another example of Teh Socializm (and you know who was a Socializt? Hitler!). Would be quite happy to be wrong.As Republicans channeling the late, great Denholm Elliott might say, “Can’t we have both?” It’s all opposition all the time for the GOP and the Teabaggers. (They know which Obama to fight: The Black One.)
Nick
@Warren Terra:
and then he could have stood alone trying to swat away centuries of bigotry while we sit on our blogs and parse his every move to find any sign of weakness, you know, rather than help him fight.
BombIranForChrist
I for one welcome our new gay overlords.
Nick
@Allison W.:
For the liberal bloggers desperate for attention, it’s ALWAYS about them, because they’re “the base” you know, because they supported Obama from the moment…Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, Gravel, and in some cases Hillary Clinton, dropped out.
kay
@NR:
I think that because of what the letter says:
“The implementation process”. The one that will be happening.
I respect tough-guy action as much as the next gal, I guess, but does this “fuck what you people who actually have to put this in place think, do what I demand and do it now” approach work in your own life? With real people? It doesn’t in mine. Maybe I’m not issuing enough directives to underlings.
Mike Kay
@Nick: win. full of win.
Nick
@Peter:
shrapnel is already in the air, might as well use it to take down those sending them up in the first place.
Martin
@Mike Kay: You can see how eager Obama was to overachieve at disappointing us compared to Bush. Bush was still tanked up on booze and coke at the age Obama was figuring out new ways to screw Democrats.
gwangung
Dude, you keep wearing those “Kick Me” signs, someone’s gonna oblige.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
John, if I understand the process correctly, repeal won’t make the end of DADT permanent. It’s a success, yes, and repeal leaves the Pentagon free to get rid of the DADT policy, or the President free to end it via executive order, but it doesn’t require them to do so. So the “permanent” is open to interpretation still.
That said, I think DADT will be gone by the end of next year, with its repeal eventually becoming permanent via the usual civil rights and equal opportunity policies. But repeal doesn’t make it permanent, it just starts the process.
.
Martin
Huzzah! GOS declares it a disaster. Even while repealing DADT, Obama managed to not only disappoint us but prove that he really, totally hates teh gheys!
gwangung
@JGabriel: However, I think this is a slow, but sure way of getting it done. Better chance of buy-in from the affected people, and lessens resistance from stick in the muds–an abrupt directive, I think, provokes instant and long lasting resistance and ongoing subtage on certain topics (and if there’s any topic that would engender resistance, this would be one of them).
(And note: the military is the most top down, authoritarian organization out there–yet I think it’s a good idea to introduce change gradually here. How much more slowly does change go have to diffuse in less authoritarian organizations? One can aruge it really hasn’t diffused in an organization like GM where it was arguably vital to the viability of the organization).
Malron
And right on cue, the Firebaguettes come out of the woodwork to attack Cole. So predictable. PUMA!
By the way, if anyone wants to really see some idiocy in action, check out the comments section of the POLITICO article John linked to. There are some real pearls of wisdom being shared by a poster named “Redux.”
RalfW
The fierce urgency of repealing on the down-low.
You’re so right that this does nothing to inspire progressive voter turnout this fall.
Yet another squandered op.
MikeJ
@Martin: huh? Not a front pager post. There’s a story in the rec list that declares it “good news all around.”
I’m sure there are leventy thousand “Obama sold us out” diaries, but nutpicking them is a bit unfair.
Mike Kay
@RalfW: if he only wore a Joan Crawford costume with leather chaps while screaming “NO WIRE HANGERES” while beating Gates.
Because fags are too stupid and classless to appreciate tact and nuance.
Nick
@RalfW:
oh please, for progressive not inspired to turn out in the fall, if not this, it would be something else keeping them home, because they’re looking for a reason to stay home.
If keeping the likes of Rand Paul out of the Senate isn’t enough to inspire progressive voters to turn out, then fuck them and the horse they failed to ride in on.
I don’t want my President governin the country on the political whims of a few progressives prone to butthurt
kay
@RalfW:
I don’t know, RalfW. Actual activists lobbied the WH and Congress and then negotiated the deal.
They’re probably pleased with their work.
micah616
Why do so many so called progressives hate progress so much?
Nick
@micah616: because it means they would have to stop being so damn cynical for five minutes and that might hurt ad revenue from their blog because there’s no OUTRAGE to drive in people and, with them, hits.
Shinobi
OMG I am so pissed. The pony I have received is small and brown. It was supposed to be big and white and have a magical horn. This administration sucks.
kay
@micah616:
I don’t know.
They want to push it through Congress because they are afraid they’ll lose seats in the fall. I would think that probably indicates a serious commitment, not the reverse, or that’s how I’d read it. If they didn’t actually intend to do it, they’d wait for the study, lose seats, and then say they don’t have the votes.
NobodySpecial
@gwangung:
The problem I have with this mode of thinking goes back to Truman.
Truman, if you’ll recall, was looking at favorability polls well under 40% with a looming presidential election when he integrated the military, and he did it with an EO rather than wait for Congress to give the OK. Despite the unpopularity of the move, he won reelection.
In contrast, Obama’s not up for reelection for another two years, and is fairly popular with Americans. For him NOT to push like Truman did risks unfavorable comparison, which is ok everywhere except in the halls of the Purity Troll Police of BJ, evidently.
Admiral_Komack
@robertdsc:
Word.
Mike Kay
@kay: Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.
If you haven’t learned by now, the firebaggers will never be happy with anything obama accomplishes. Because even when he accomplishes exactly what they want, they then complain that it wasn’t fast enough (1 year and 4 months) or not enough hoopla (he didn’t dress up as marie antoinette)..
kay
@NobodySpecial:
This is from the Truman Library:
September 1945: Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson appoints a board of three general officers to investigate the Army’s policy with respect to African-Americans and to prepare a new policy that would provide for the efficient use of African-Americans in the Army. This board is called the Gillem Board, after its chairman, General Alvan C. Gillem, Jr.
October 1, 1945: The Gillem Board holds its first meeting. Four months of investigation follow.
1946
February 1946: African-American World War II veteran Isaac Woodard is attacked and blinded by policemen in Aiken, South Carolina.
April 1946: The report of the Gillem Board, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army Policy,” is issued. The report concludes that the Army’s future policy should be to “eliminate, at the earliest practicable moment, any special consideration based on race.” The report, however, does not question that segregation would continue to underlie the Army’s policy toward African-Americans. Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall later characterized the policy recommended by the Gillem Board as “equality of opportunity on the basis of segregation.”
July 1946: Two African-American veterans and their wives are taken from their car near Monroe, Georgia, by a white mob and shot to death; their bodies are found to contain 60 bullets.
July 30, 1946: Attorney General Tom Clark announces that President Truman has instructed the Justice Department to “proceed with all its resources to investigate [the Monroe, Georgia atrocity] and other crimes of oppression so as to ascertain if any Federal statute can be applied.”
September 12, 1946: In a letter to the National Urban League, President Truman says that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.”
December 6, 1946: President Truman appoints the President’s Committee on Civil Rights.
1947
May 1947: The President’s Advisory Commission on Universal Training gives a report to the President in which it concludes that “nothing could be more tragic for the future attitude of our people, and for the unity of our Nation, than a program [referring to the Truman administration’s proposed Universal Military Training program] in which our Federal Government forced our young manhood to live for a period of time in an atmosphere which emphasized or bred class or racial difference.”
October 29, 1947: The President\’s Committee on Civil Rights issues its landmark report, To Secure These Rights. The report condemns segregation wherever it exists and criticizes specifically segregation in the armed forces. The report recommends legislation and administrative action “to end immediately all discrimination and segregation based on race, color, creed or national origin in…all branches of the Armed Services.”
November 1947: Clark Clifford presents a lengthy memorandum to President Truman which argues that the civil rights issue and the African-American vote are important elements in a winning strategy for the 1948 campaign.
November 1947: A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds organize the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training..
1948
January 1948: President Truman decides to end segregation in the armed forces and the civil service through administrative action (executive order) rather than through legislation.
Nick
@NobodySpecial: For the love of Christ, Obama CANNOT end DADT by Exec. Order, all he can do is temporarly halt it. That can easily be undone by another executive order.
and if you people knew you’re history, you would have known that despute Truman’s executive order, the military was STILL segregated in Korea two years later and it wasn’t until over three years after Truman’s EO that the Army decided to desegregate on its own. The military wasn’t fully desegregated until 1954, more than six years after the EO.
Let’s stop pretending the EO is a magic wand here.
Admiral_Komack
@micah616:
“Why do so many so called progressives hate progress so much? ”
Because if you don’t progress in the way they want, when they want it, you’re worse than Bush, Hitler, Stalin, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote…:-(
D-Chance.
But He Didn’t Do It in the Loudest and Most Disruptive Manner Possible, So It Doesn’t Really Count!
You know how it is… “I am Woman, hear me roar!”
Nick
@kay:
and it was September, 1954, when the last all black unit was dismantled.
Almost ten years.
Davis X. Machina
This I like.
NobodySpecial
@kay:
You’re not really arguing with that post, you know. The military clearly didn’t want to go far or fast and Truman rejected them in favor of a speeded-up program.
Also, I’d have a hard time arguing that civil rights advocates and gay Americans aren’t going to be major players in an Obama reelection.
NR
@kay: Alright, well, if the study is just a formality and repeal is guaranteed, we’ll see that soon enough.
I have my doubts, but once gay people are serving openly in uniform, Obama and the Democrats will get some well-deserved kudos from me.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
Let’s instead pretend that the EO is a pretty direct way for the President to give people a message that it’s time to get it done and quit pussyfooting around, shall we?
Mike Kay
@NobodySpecial: why did truman wait 4 years? If it was such a fearless act, why didn’t he do it 10 minutes after V-J day?
Hell, why didn’t FDR, who shit marble, integrate the armed forces?
Ditto, women’s suffrage. Why did Wilson wait 6 years.
Ditto, civil rights. JFK didn’t send up civil rights legislation until June 1963, and let’s face it, it wouldn’t have passed within a year without his martyrdom.
Ditto, voting rights. Even with JFK’s death, LBJ was unable to twist arms and deal out enough pork to include the voting rights act with the civil right act. Then even after he won the largest popular vote (61%) in history (which still stands, today) he couldn’t pass voting rights until the savagery of Selma played out on everyone’s tee vees.
but no, you’re right, it took 1 year, 4 months, and 4 days. Even though an EO could be reversed in a subsequent winger/fundie administration, even though an EO blew up in Clinton’s face when he tried, obama took too long, by going the solid route of codification.
kay
@Mike Kay:
It’s interesting, because I don’t think conservatives are fooled.
I’m in a court regularly with a conservative judge. I like him. We spar on politics, but friendly. He’s not insane, not a tea bagger, and he reads a lot, although he doesn’t use a computer, so he never knows who won the morning, that sort of thing.
He thinks Obama is quietly transforming the whole country.
He’s patiently resigned to this, but he actually respects election results, so didn’t have to go through “acceptance mode” or anything.
Mike Kay
Shorter hippie response: daddy, if I can’t have it now, then I don’t want it and I’m gonna cut myself and marry the wrong man, just to hurt you.
kay
@NR:
You and me both. That policy is repellent and cruel. I’m ashamed of it. Wouldn’t hurt to call Congress on Thursday. They’re chickens.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
and then sat around while the military waited another six years to fully implement it.
You should probably stop now.
kay
@Nick:
What’s fascinating is the political angle, right?
Clark Clifford writes a memo where he tells Truman “this is our next majority!”
It’s always in there. Nothing goes forward without that analysis. Nothing. It could make one very cynical.
NobodySpecial
@Mike Kay:
I’d like links to their campaign speeches where they declared that the military should be integrated in the cases of FDR and Truman.
Wilson never publicly supported women’s suffrage until two days before the first vote in 1918 in Congress on the matter.
I’d suggest that such sloppy work in support of an actual argument from you is neither new or unusual.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
How long do you think it would have taken had Truman not issued the EO?
You could stop anytime too, you know.
micah616
@Nick: It’s not just the big bloggers, though. And not just their synchophants. It just seems to me like there’s a core of people who keep on moving the goalposts. No matter what Obama does, it will never be enough, as they either minimize it or completely ignore it, and I’d really like to know why that is.
Mike Kay
here we are, sitting in the hindsight of history, and nobody says why did Lincoln take sooooooo long to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
Nobody says what took JFK & LBJ so long.
40 years from now, no one will be wringing their hands saying why did it take obama 1 year, 4 months, and 4 days. In fact, people will say, thank goodness Obama went the concrete route of codification, rather then the EO route. Watch, the next winger/fundie president will overturn obama’s EO on stem cell research, minutes after goose stepping into the oval office. And if obama had used an EO on DADT, that would have been overturned just as quick.
But today, in the present, we’re all about gestures, not substance. Some so called reality based community.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
Well, since civil rights advocates and gay Americans lobbied and then negotiated the deal, I don’t know that they’re displeased with it.
micah616
@kay: It is a serious commitment. And one that, from my perspective, does what it needs to do in a way that won’t be left to the whims of poll chasing politicians. that seems to be how the President handles most things.
Nick
@kay: Well yes, because untl the 1930s, African-Americans were a Republican voting bloc…they were key to Truman winning states like New York (which he didn’t, but was close), Ohio (which he did and was close), Michigan (which he didn’t, but was close), Illinois (which he did and was close) and California (which he did and was close)
Had Truman lost them all, he would’ve lost the election.
Mike Kay
@micah616: if they didn’t like obama before he took office, they not inclined to like obama while he’s in office.
Gwangung
You’re really not helping yourself with this….
How about stopping for a sec and think it through. Just why did it take an additional four years and what’s bring done differently now, hm?
NobodySpecial
@Mike Kay:
You DID know he had the Proclamation written well before he issued it, right? Scholars know that after he showed it to the Cabinet, that he followed Seward’s suggestion and waited for a successful battle to bring it out – that battle was Antietam.
Like I said – you’re pretty sloppy on this whole ‘historical argument’ thing.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
I don’t know, couldn’t he, by your Hamsherite theory, used his “bully pulpit” to beat Senators into submission or something. Isn’t that what you think good Presidents do? What if he had whipped Democrats into line in 1948? Perhaps we wouldn’t have waited until 1954 for a desegregated military? Or was Truman absolved of that while Obama is not?
it’s amazing how you keep moving the goalposts and you wonder why the establishment ignores you?
kay
@NobodySpecial:
I think Mike Kay does good political analysis, and that’s why I read what he writes. I don’t think he pretends to delve into policy details. There’s room for both, and both are interesting and actually necessary to the process.
It’s why I don’t think Rahm Emanuel is an enemy of progressives. I think he simply counts votes. It’s good to have someone like that around.
Now that I’ve compared poor Mike Kay to the loathed and sometimes feared Rahm Emanual, I have to go :)
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
so? It was ok for the slaves to wait a few years until William Seward felt it was a good time for Lincoln to free them?
Obama should allow gays to serve openly NOW! But the slaves could wait a few years to be free and the blacks could wait a few years to serve with white soldiers. That’s ok.,
NobodySpecial
@Gwangung:
From what point are you saying ‘four years’?
Martin
@MikeJ: Front page post is up. Read the comments. Obama has failed them yet again. Not fast enough, not loud enough, remedy is worse than DADT.
AxelFoley
@RSR:
Obama’s like a ninja. He uses stealth, reaches his target, takes care of business, and he’s out. Produces the same results as if he came in like a bulldozer and ran everyone over.
Ninja.
Ninja.
Gwangung
Are you reading what people have written? Because it’s not reflected in what you’re saying to other people. I’ve mentioned before about having buy in from the military itself and how there needs to be internal buy in for more rapid implementation, but that’s not reflected at all in you responses to me or others. Nor do your responses reflect any awareness at all of how large organizations behave.
micah616
@Mike Kay: That part I understand. However, us liberal types are supposed to be the reality based community. If all of the “more progressive than thou” types can’t at least acknowledge the reality that progress is in fact occurring, then we might as well sell the whole thing to the highest bidder and call it an experience.
Mike Kay
@NobodySpecial: Seeing you spit on this accomplishment because it took 1 year and because he didn’t take the reckless route of using an EO that would be overturned in the next winger administration is typical. I expect nothing less from the likes of you.
The only consolation is knowing the hate you exhibit will engulf you and prematurely consume your life during the next 7 years of Obama’s presidency. The world needs less people like you.
ed
Ha ha! Teh Establishment hates you!
All hail Teh Establishment!
Citizen Alan
@NR:
Ditto. I’ll be the first to congratulate Obama and his people for repealing DADT … when DADT is actually repealed. But the deal isn’t done until the check is in the bank, and at this point, you can all excuse the F out of me for being a little cynical about whether Obama is actually going to go through with this. He hasn’t exactly been an exemplar of moral courage so far.
AxelFoley
@Kelly:
Lol, u mad?
Martin
@micah616:
Because they’re ideologues. Like libertarians, practical solutions are never adequate – there’s always too much daylight between what’s possible and their utopia, and utopia is all they’ll settle for.
AxelFoley
@Nick:
You on a roll tonight, Nick.
Slow down, son, ya killin’ ’em. ;)
IronyAbounds
Honestly, just like I’m not really a Democrat but rather an anti-Republican, I’m probably more an anti-conservative than a liberal since being a liberal obviously must mean having to do something NOW no matter what the consequences, and doing it in the most in your face manner, ignoring any practical realities. Even Rachel Maddow, whom I like, is getting on my nerves, complaining tonight about possible use of nuclear power because of reliability issues involving decades old reactors. What a bunch of whiny asses.
Mike Kay
@micah616: well, they were never really apart of the reality based community. Let’s remember, in 2000, they screamed there was no difference btwn bush and gore. even when you would say something simple, like, of course there’s a difference, gore is pro choice, they wouldn’t break their Moonie like chant, “there’s no difference btwn bush and gore.”
Martin
@AxelFoley:
NOBODY expects Barack Obama! His chief weapon is surprise…surprise and patience…patience and surprise…. His two weapons are patience and surprise…and stealth…. His *three* weapons are patience, surprise, and stealth…and an almost fanatical devotion to Rahm…. His *four*…no… *Amongst* his weapons…. Amongst his weaponry…are such elements as patience, surprise…. I’ll come in again.
Corner Stone
Ahhh. When John Cole is perfectly aligned with Mike Kay…
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley: Where do you have that banana shoved again?
micah616
@Mike Kay: Yeah. I try to block out that whole 2000 debacle. I guess I just thought they would learn. Well, like Blade says, “Some motherfuckers always wanna ice skate uphill.”
ed
I still say it’s good politics for Obama to be more vocal about overturning DADT.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
Why are you being childish? And wrong while you do it? There WAS no ‘whipping Congress’ to do anything in 1948 – he just did it. Further, if you go to the Truman library, you’ll see that delegates to the DNC stripped out moderate policies that the President supported in the party platform and replaced them with one that supported desegregation of the military.
Also, you’ll note that the Air Force and Navy already had integration plans in place within one year of the EO – only the Army held out, and that lasted only as long as it took to get back into combat.
And then there’s this drivel from you.
Well, it wasn’t years. The first draft was in July 1862; Antietam was in September of that year. And (like Truman) there were political calculations. Seward said that he liked the Proclamation, but favored waiting until a victory so it didn’t look like the administration was begging for a slave revolt to get a victory.
Mike Kay
@Corner Stone:
priceless. homophobic insults in a thread on DADT. glen would be so proud.
soonergrunt
Thank God.
It’s Congress’ duty to change the law, and once that’s done, it’s permanent. Only Congress will be able to change the law again and they’ll have to override a Presidential veto.
I’m not gay, (at least so far as I know,) but I have led and fought alongside young men who were. I’m glad they’ll be able to serve openly. And you know what? Nothing will change day to day. Soldiers will still be judged primarily by their ability to do their MOS job.
Nick
@IronyAbounds:
If Maddow is able to get the powers that be to build new reactors and improve safety at nuclear plants, then I don’t mind her whining.
I hate people who criticze, say, nuclear power because they think the whole world could be powered by windmills and solar panels.
Martin
@ed: From the sounds of it, the plan is for Congress to make a big deal out of it. They’re the ones with the election coming up.
Corner Stone
@Mike Kay: God damn you are dumb.
Beverly Hills Cop? Strike a bell for your short bus self?
NobodySpecial
@Gwangung:
What ‘buy in’ was there from the military in 1948? Not much. The buy in came AFTER the EO, which is the first time Royall admitted that segregation ‘had to go’.
As I noted in my reply to Nickstuck, two of the three branches of the armed forces had integration plans ready to go within one year of the EO. The Army could have been integrated much more quickly than it did had not the brass kept fighting with the Fahy commission over the details. As it turned out, the war did more to speed it up than the Army brass did.
NobodySpecial
@Mike Kay:
I’m sorry you’re bankrupt in this argument and have to fall back on your fantasy that Nader voters are keeping you down. You’ll be much better when they find some meds that work for you.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
within one year and you’re having a fucking hissy fit over seven months.
.
July 1862 being 16 months after Lincoln took office, what took him so long?
Political calculations are ok for Lincoln and Truman, but not Obama.
Mike Kay
@Martin: maybe we can get the Village People in full regale to sing the national anthem at the signing ceremony.
NobodySpecial
@IronyAbounds:
Understand that a lot of people of a certain age still vicerally remember Three Mile Island and got stirred up again with the pictures from Chernobyl that were released a few years ago.
Of course, they’re wrong, but calling them ‘whiny asses’ isn’t going to do the job. Pointing out how far nuclear sites have come since TMI and how much safer the new reactors are will.
AxelFoley
@micah616:
I’ve noticed the goalpost moving since the 2008 Primaries, micah. Sad, ain’t it?
Martin
@IronyAbounds:
Well, I’m a proponent of reactors and I thought she was fine. She did have the Sec Energy in front of her, so she brought up concerns in context and then asked him to clarify/correct anything he said.
And I thought her criticism was well focused. It wasn’t so much on the reactors but on the management of them. If we have al Qaeda members getting jobs there, then yeah, that’s a big problem. I’ve never trusted the companies running the reactors because by and large they’re little different than the guys drilling for oil and while the oversight is better there’s no shortage of small to moderate problems at nuclear reactors. I trust the navy to run reactors, but I don’t trust people chasing the bottom line. These are good issues for the Sec Energy to address.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
Being dishonest does not help your argument.
Within one year of the EO being issued. There is no integration plan for gays more than a year after the inauguration because rather than do what Truman did, Obama is leaving it all to Congress. At this rate, there will be no plans ready from the military until after the 2012 elections – four years from the inauguration. Like I said, with comparisons to Truman’s popularity and the election, having to wait until Obama’s second term for something he promised in his first doesn’t invite good comparisons.
Lincoln was not a hardcore emancipationist before the election. In contrast, Obama campaigned on repealing DADT.
Explain to the class how Obama going slowly on a campaign promise to a key bloc of his constituency is a GOOD political calculation without invoking America as a center right nation.
Mike Kay
@Corner Stone: you homophobes make me sick. fucking bigot.
micah616
@AxelFoley: And I expect to watch those goalposts keep moving further and further away.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial:
***SPUTTER***
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
Say, man, I’m not gonna fall for that banana in the tailpipe!
Corner Stone
@Mike Kay: I’m not a homophobe. Some of my best friends are gay!
I’m anti-stupid. And you personify the epically stupid amongst us.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Oh, I forgot, Obama was supposed to sign an EO on Day one like Truman did…oh wait, Truman waited three years into the Presidency to sign his EO? LOSER!!! So Truman, who promised to desegregate the military in 194fucking5 can wait three years to sign an EO, but Obama is a failure of not doing it at 12:01 a.m. on Jan 20, 2009.
Actually, since we waited until Truman’s second term to see even the beginnings of desegregation, the comparisons are exact. We didn’t see the full effects of desegregation until President Dwight David Eisenhower was facing his first midterm election. If we see openly gay servicemen serving by the end of Obama’s second term, he’s ahead of Truman.
Lincoln was not a WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH???????? the Republican Party was founded on emancipation!!! My God, you can’t possibly be this stupid. You’re arguments have more holes in them than BP’s oil rigs.
America IS a center right nation.
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley: Then you should back slowly away from comments by Nickstuck and/or Mike Kay.
There’s nothing but epic fail there.
Mike Kay
@Corner Stone: you must really hate yourself, as homophobes are stupid.
Rarely Posts
I always thought it would play out this way (hoping it does, let’s not assume chickens, etc.), and I’ve generally had little patience with people angry at Obama for everything, but . . .
This Bill is a product of tons of hard work and activism by gay rights groups and liberals; if it passes, the heavy lifting on the Hill was done by the Senators and Representatives. Moreover, the repeal of DADT is now supported by over 70% of the population. And Obama has . . . expressed support for its repeal and generally not pushed the issue at all. He let other people make it their priority, and he did not get in the way. Now, it’s possible he worked his mojo on the military brass; if so, that counts for a lot.
Listen, if this passes, I’ll be pleased with Obama and the Democrats (for once; they disappoint a lot too). But, please don’t act as though this is all his success. I’m a little frustrated to see people acting as though every success by the liberal/progressive democratic machine is Obama’s success alone, and every failure is just the liberals being unrealistic.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
The Jane Hamsher drones gave me a nickname…WIN!
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
Can’t do that. Mike Kay and Nick are becoming my favorite bloggers here with their posts tonight.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
Please tell me you are at least aware that Obama could not go the EO route even if he wanted to.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: It’s easier to be disappointed by Obama when you assume he’s not constrained by acts of congress.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
I will repeat this for you very slowly: Obama cannot do what Truman did. It is illegal for him to do so.
Will you please fucking stop making a completely bogus comparison that hasn’t been valid since the Supreme Court slapped Truman down in 1952?
Nick
@Mnemosyne: Someone who thinks Abraham Lincoln didn’t support freeing the slaves before he became President isn’t playing with enough of a deck to know something like THAT.
Mike Kay
@Rarely Posts:
I’ve seen the exact opposite. any bad news is always obama’s “katrina”. Even in this issue, it’s obama’s fault that congress hasn’t acted sooner that the 1 year, 4 months, and 4 days since he took office.
After all, the democrats took control of Congress in 2006 two years and three weeks before obama’s inauguration and they didn’t pass a bill during that time frame. yes bush would have vetoed it, but atleast the bill would have been available for passage the moment obama stepped through the oval office. but they didn’t even bother.
so yes, if congress deserves the lion share of credit, they they also deserve the blame for sitting on their hands since they took control of congress.
of course, the BP spill, the underpants bomber, the times square bomber, and eurodollar crisis are still obama’s fault.
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley:
Oh wow. Your level of snark has been raised to notches above the norm.
Well played sir.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
You’re failing your namesake Nickstuck. Sure you couldn’t work a Hillary or Edwards in there somewhere?
Mike Kay
@Mnemosyne: true. DADT is codified. it was codified in 1993. as most people know, a congression act can’t be overturned with a EO. The president can ONLY suspend it with a EO, he can’t end it with a EO. The EO can easily be lifted by the next winger prezdnit.
But facts have never been the strong suit of the ironically so called realty based community.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Please, Hillary and Edwards combined were too far right for you nutjobs.
Mnemosyne
@Mike Kay:
Actually, it’s not clear that he could even suspend it since Republicans could argue that he’s trying to nullify the law. An EO would probably have to be put on hold and go to the Supremes for them to sort out.
But apparently some people would rather lose a futile court battle than actually, you know, do something that might work.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
Oh you thought it was about enacting policies? Oh no, it’s about say mean things about Republicans on TV.
Safronie
@JG:
You’ve never read AMERICAblog have you?
Mike Kay
@Mnemosyne: True. the law as written says he can only suspend DADT for “Essential” personal. He couldn’t invoke a blanket suspension, without showing every buck-private was essential.
Martin
@Mike Kay: That’s my view. Any success that they’re willing to acknowledge as such is success in spite of, not because of Obama.
It’s as though the President or Congress exist, but not both at the same time.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
I’m still waiting for that link to his statements on integrating the military in 1945.
Fail comparison for $100, Alex. By March ’51, all of the Army’s training brigades were integrated and openly black members were serving with the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in Pusan – three years after the EO. If you’re seeing openly gay soldiers serving in combat divisions by 2011, THEN you can say Obama beat Truman.
Heh. Someone never read their history books too closely, and that would be you. Lincoln wanted to colonize free Blacks in South America – he openly told free Blacks that white America was too racist to permit them to live freely in America. The ‘Black’ Republicans were never a plurality in the Republican Party even DURING the war, which is why folks like Wade and Davis were the original ‘Firebaggers’.
Dream on, kiddo. We’ll be here in the reality based community waiting for you.
EDIT – he could make a pretty convincing case that in times of hostilities, his power over the military is at it’s zenith, which is part of the argument in Youngstown. But yeah, we don’t wanna argue facts, we’ll just accept that America is a center-right nation and everyone to the left of you is a Nader voter. /rolleyes
NobodySpecial
With that, I’m out. Work time. Good night to all my detractors, let your freak flag fly.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Look at comment 88 moron.
Fail. The last all black army unit was desegregated in September, 1954, but I wouldn’t expect someone who thinks Lincoln supported slavery when running for President to know anything about history, so you’re forgiven. The army didn’t even annouce it would desegregate until July, 1951…really, what is wrong with you?
Where did your history books come from? Did you pull them out of your ass? How does this differ from wanted to emacipate for free them? You say he never supported freeing them and then you say he did support freeing them (but wanted to send them away)
In a world where Lincoln didn’t support freeing slaves, except he did and wanted to sent them to South America (it was actually Africa, but whatever), and in a world where the army will fully desegregated four months before they actually decided to comply with Truman’s Executive Order and desegregate, I wouldn’t think you’d know a “reality based community” if it came dressed as Ralph Nader.
Nick
@NobodySpecial: Oh no, the crazy is gone.
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: But ideologs of any stripe never let small things like facts get in the way of a good pissing and moaning rant. Check out this thread on CAAFLog, a blog about military justice appellate law. They’re following the birther LTC Lakin, who is going to be court martialed for missing movement to deploy to Afghanistan because he thinks Obama may not be the valid President.
After careful consideration by these career military lawyers, prosecutors and defense advocates alike, the conclusion is that Lakin is pretty much royally screwed nine ways from Christmas and that the only thing that can prevent that is Lakin accidentally hanging himself, essentially. The birthers have invaded this otherwise quiet blog about an esoteric subject and threads that would be considered hot with about half a dozen posts has one thread that won’t die at 85. And the birthers just don’t accept that these guys actually know what they are talking about.
ND22
@NobodySpecial:
Um, this law states that openly gay soldiers WOULD be serving in combat divisions by 2011…the law would be repealed after the review is finished in December.
celticdragonchick
@Peter:
It is getting a bit old, I agree.
In any event, GLBT people have been fucked over by the Dems while getting hit up for campaign contributions for years. John and the crew here conveniently forget that.
I’ll believe that DADT is gone when he signs it. Anything can (and likely will) happen between now and then.
celticdragonchick
@Rarely Posts:
Nicely put.
MinneapolisPipe
@Peter: I think you’re missing one of Cole’s references.
If you’ve read any of Andrew Sullivan’s posts about Obama’s handling of DADT, you’ll know.
Speaking of which, it’s 11:30 CST Monday, and Sullivan has yet to say anything about it. SHOCK.
Mnemosyne
@soonergrunt:
Damn, that was funny. I especially liked when the birther was repeatedly corrected on his usage of the term “prima facie” and he just kept truckin’ along.
Corner Stone
God damn Loretta Sanchez is an imbecile.
How the fuck does this keep happening?
Joe Buck
Obama could have done a freeze on firing gays right away, and then he could have twisted arms to get DADT attached to the first DoD appropriations bill, which is must-pass, meaning that the Republicans can’t block it. Even though DADT is in the law, Obama had the power, for example, to declare that linguists are vital to the national defense and he’s not going to allow their firings in large numbers, even though linguistic talent is apparently highly correlated with homosexuality for some reason.
If this approach will get it done now, better this way than no way, but I don’t trust Lieberman. He’ll get some neocon wish-list item attached to the bill.
Andy K
@NobodySpecial:
Openly black? I don’t think that “passing” black soliers were in the front of Truman’s mind when he signed that EO.
You’re really in apples and oranges territory here, you know. Prior to Truman’s EO, black soldiers and sailors served, but in segregated units. But they were pretty, uhm, openly black, for the most part.
Gays and lesbians, of course, serve in the US military and always have (okay, gay men always have, since women…didn’t officially serve for a very long time). The difference being that there have never been any segregated gay units (although I’ve had my suspicions for years that the Air Force has been in the closet for a long time).
The Raven
So why does Obama suddenly care about DADT, a year and a half into his term in office, when he started alienating gays as soon as he was sworn in? People who put blood and guts into his campaign, who he scarcely thanked.
Far as I’m concerned, Obama’s like the creepy guy stringing several women along who one day notices that one of them is unhappy. Doesn’t give her anything real, doesn’t give her anything that might alienate the women he really wants, but gives her something–he thinks she might be useful, later.
ruemara
@micah616:
I know some here will argue vociferously against this, but when you’re black, you get used to goalposts set on rabbit’s backside. They can move pretty darn fast. It’s not stereotypical racism, but it often has the conviction that people with those beliefs have. They aren’t evil, you probably won’t disagree with the over all goals for society, but when you hit that wall, boy will you hit it.
Mike Kay
@The Raven: I see you’ve been elected president of the self-hating butthurt loony left.
Cole couldn’t have come up with a better title.
ask yourself this, why didn’t congress move to repeal DADT when they took control in 2006? Does San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi also string along gays? but of course, it’s all obama’s fault, Pelosi is powerless over congress.
and in case you didn’t notice, you pissed all over gays and women with your fucked up self-hating analogy (women and gays are marks/dupes) in order to insult obama.
keep cutting yourself, you lonely loser. Hope you join Ratso.
Mike Kay
@ruemara:
what makes you say that? it sounds pretty evil to me – moving the goal posts based on some bias or bigotry.
Socratic_me
Count me among the glad when/if this goes through. And credit all around once earned. But let me also note that as happy as I am for gays who want to serve, this is such a tiny issue to me compared to say, unlawful imprisonment, indefinite wars and pissing on the constitution in the name of safety, that I still find myself annoyed at all those like Mike Kay and Nick who insist that everyone who doesn’t think Obama is just teh Greatest for getting some progressive things done is automatically a hater. Until recently, I hadn’t realized that Cole was among that number. As is noted above, it is getting pretty old.
Mike Kay
@Socratic_me:
I didn’t know greeks were so thin skinned. I though they were pretty tough from all that Mediterranean sun. but no, you guys are really sensitive.
how many people are being held in unlawful imprisonment? Are suggesting Khalid Sheik Mohammad is being held unlawfully and should be released? I hear he’s a pilot. Maybe we can let him fly a jumbo jet home.
Wile E. Quixote
@NobodySpecial:
“Openly black”? What, were black guys joining the military before that but passing as white guys by wearing heavy make-up? Did they get outed by white guys who had “blackdar”? Are there latent blacks? Flaming blacks?
Openly black? Does that mean that there are closeted blacks? If there are that would go a long way towards explaining Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele. “Openly black”. That is the funniest goddamned thing I’ve read on this blog since parking would be difficult, staying alive even harder.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
I had to come back during break just for this pricelessness from you.
Nowhere in there does it say in 1945 where Truman was planning on integrating the military. The Gillem panel was commissioned by the SecWar, not the President, and as the link notes, nowhere was it assumed that segregation would go away as the result of that panel.
What was that about moving goalposts? I can’t hear you when you keep backing up like that…
Integration of military units had started in the Navy after 1945, and the Air Force submitted their integration plan in 1950. The Army had a plan in 1950, too, but the Fahy commission denied it because it didn’t go far enough.
And by the way – never said Lincoln supported slavery. I said he wasn’t in favor of emancipation, which is a different subject. I will note, however, that after he wrote the Proclamation, but before Antietam, he wrote Horace Greeley a letter in which he said that if he could save the Union without freeing the slaves, he would do it. That’s not exactly the ringing endorsement of the Black Republicans you seem to think he was always about.
Actually, the original plan in the 1850’s was Liberia. The proposed legislation said Haiti or Liberia, and during the war, there were offers from St. Croix, Guiana, Haiti, Liberia, Honduras, and Ecuador.
As Lincoln himself said during the Lincoln-Douglas debates:
I think that I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not.
But don’t let facts get in the way of your lefty-hating.
NobodySpecial
@Wile E. Quixote:
It’s a joke, of course, a play on ‘openly gay’. I find that funny when we’re talking about military service. Think Arlo Guthrie talking about rehabilitation in Alice’s Restaraunt.
Mike Kay
@NobodySpecial:
Most of us aren’t fossiles, captain toke. try some contemporary reference, you burn out hippie.
And you still haven’t explained, how can a president overturn a fully codified law with an executive order?
Brutus et tu
And a volcanic explosion , or an earthquake, or hurricane, or tornado, will be described as God’s punishment for this new decision on DADT policy in, 5,4,3,2,1…
NobodySpecial
@Mike Kay:
I dunno. What’s a fossile?
Okay. Try Trick Daddy’s ‘America’.
He can make the argument before the court that, in times of war, his power over the military reaches it’s zenith. This was the thrust of the argument in Youngstown, and was rejected because the steel mills, while vital to defense industries, did not specifically come under his authority under the Constitution. The composition of forces, however, certainly does – which is why no one tried undoing Truman’s EO. Overturning Obama’s EO would also have the effect of making Truman’s EO equally illegal. Even the RATS team won’t touch that one.
MinneapolisPipe
Does anyone else find this bizarre?
Andrew Sullivan will be late in commenting on the DADT developments (despite still having time to post a picture of a giraffe).
But should Trygg Palin poop in his diaper, he’ll be all over it with round the clock coverage, live-blogging, and a poop-colored masthead on his blog.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
Thank god Mike Kay is here to wage his one-man war against straw. Keep hacking away, brave Mike Kay! Maybe someday nobody in the world will ever say anything bad about Obama again, and you can finally rest. But for now, the forces of Hamshwaldism still lurk in every closet and under every bed, and only you can properly sling the same tired insults 30 times a thread for months straight.
Just remember, o brave one: anyone who says that your one-man show is getting tiresome is just another secret Glenbot, and if they weren’t so thin skinned the shtick you’re been running for, what, six months maybe, would still be fresh and trenchant in their eyes.
Of course, the fact that I’d say such things likely means I’m another FDL zombie out to rob Obama of his
precious bodily fluidsrightly earned praise and hosannas. It’s not that you’re so fucking annoying that I’d prefer to debate a van full of truthers than listen to you talk about Hamsher for ten seconds. Quick, sling a mindless insult at me! How about “lol ur so thin-skind cuz u dont wanna suck O PERFECT AND WISE OBAMA’s perfect and wise dingaling.”Ow, that stings! Well, keep up the good fight.
Oh! One word of advice: If you plan to screech at somebody about what a terrible homophobe they are because they referenced putting something in an asshole, you should probably not say things like this:
I realize that the hours you spend battling the idea that anyone in the world might not worship Obama as fervently as you don’t leave you much time for any other human interaction, but I’m surprised you hadn’t heard that “pansy” is a derogatory word for gay people. Oh well, I suppose as long as your gay slurs are aimed toward someone you’ve determined to be a firebagger because they didn’t jizz when they read about the DADT repeal it’s not offensive at all. Carry on!
Mike Kay
@NobodySpecial:
oh I see, what you’re talking about. you’re wrong. it’s much more complicated than that. it involves not simply whether an EO falls under an article 2 power, but additionally whether congress has specifically or implicitly spoken on the issue. If congress had not spoken/codified DADT, that would be one thing, but it has. And let’s remember, not only did congress act, but clinton signed it into law. here, the executive branch agreed with the legislative branch. you would have to argue that DADT was an unconstitutional restriction on the executive’s article 2 powers, and then who knows how SCOTUS would rule. The reason why Truman’s EO stands is because congress never spoke/codified the issue of segregation in the armed forces. Overturning an EO on DADT wouldn’t effect Truman’s EO, because of the lack of an underlying parallel congressional act on segregation. SCOTUS could easily distinguish the two cases on that alone (congressional act on one, no congressional act on the other).
Even if it worked, the next winger prezdnt can just as easily reverse obama’s EO. I mean do we really want to go through this again and again, every time there’s a change in the white house.
So yes, instead of engaging in “broadway dramatics” with a high chance of failure, that wouldn’t last longer than the end of a Democratic presidency even if it worked, obama instead chose the boring stable method of passing a law, 1 year, 4 months, and 4 days into office, that will set policy in stone.
Mike Kay
@Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix: Pffft. you don’t like my comments, yet you read every one. Heh! Face it, you’re hooked, you’re addicted, I’m under your skin and that says so much more about you than me.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@Mike Kay: I’m addicted to BJ, sure. Your posts are just what I have to endure to get it. You’re like the crushed vitamin pills used to cut cocaine, people would prefer if it wasn’t there, but they’ll put up with it for their fix.
Are you going to apologize for that horribly homophobic thing you said? Not that I care, but after the gasket you blew over homophobes earlier it might go a little ways to show that you’re not a completely worthless hypocrite.
Mike Kay
@Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix: still reading my comments, you’re such a good little bitch. Heh.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@Mike Kay: And now a sexist comment, as well as an admission that you’re only trolling. Durrrr, u shore are smrt!
But seriously, simply getting a response from someone, anyone, should only be a victory for the most pathetic, useless, sad little fuckers on the planet. Or, being generous, a six-year-old. Wow, you got me to spend a few minutes typing when I was bored! You are the winner of life!
kay
Nancy Pelosi.
She simply doesn’t make statements like this unless she’s confident.
Anyone on the Left who wants Nancy Pelosi to lose her majority in the House is simply nuts. Progressives have an incredibly effective leader, and it’s not Obama. For some inexplicable reason, they haven’t figured out it’s Pelosi.
Conservatives aren’t running against Obama, they’re running against Pelosi, and they have been doing that since 2005. There’s a reason for that. She’s the liberal leader.
ND22
@NobodySpecial:
The Secretary of War works for who?
Which is in Africa.
I see you’re not good at paraphrasing, but that doesn’t surprise me from someone who hears whatever he wants to hear. So I’ll help
Lincoln: “Make slaves free and equal? No matter how I feel, there isn’t enough public support to make that happen”
Oh gee, if only Obama was as willing to stand up to equal rights and public opinion as Abraham fucking Lincoln.
But don’t let facts get in the way of your irrelevant lefty whining.
The Raven
@Mike Kay: How do you get self-hating?
@kay: Pelosi is at the real center, as far as I can tell. I like this discussion at Kos. Also, rumor (The Advocate, pretty good source) has it that:
So maybe Pelosi gets the House to vote for it, and bring something home to her constituents, maybe it even passes the Senate, and, in the end, nothing actually happens. That would be consonant with many other “reforms” we’ve seen from this administration: lots of talk, much less action.
kay
Because it isn’t Obama:
When administration officials recognized they could not stop Congress in its effort to repeal the ban, they invited gay rights activists to the White House to work on a compromise Monday.
Your single-minded focus on Obama is misplaced. But continue to ignore Pelosi, although she’s an incredibly effective ally, and a really powerful leader in her own right, one who succeeds 9 times out of 10. If she loses the majority, we lose her. So, that’s smart.
kay
@The Raven:
Pelosi is the center of power on nearly every liberal initiative. She doesn’t always succeed, but she starts from the left, and she runs the House.
I guess I don’t understand why that isn’t recognized, by liberals.
I don’t know: because she doesn’t look like LBJ and she hardly ever swaggers? Maybe a cowboy hat?
I feel as if this long-sought liberal leader appeared, and liberals didn’t notice. Maybe it’s because everyone hates Congress, and that’s her arena. She is not, in fact, the President, but shit, she’s a really effective Congressional leader. In a real practical sense, she’s second in power to Obama. In a lot of situations, she’s more powerful than Obama. Seems like that would be something to hang onto.
The Raven
@kay: Where did you get the idea I dislike Pelosi? Yes, I think you are right–Pelosi backed the administration into this. I also think that Obama made the same calculation you are making. He’d rather have Pelosi as Speaker of the House and a unified House Democratic delegation than whoever blocking this would give him. If Pelosi doesn’t bring something home to her constituents, the Democrats might even lose the seat to a leftist third party candidate–a Green or an independent.
BTW, on The Raven’s right-to-left scale, where 1 is Grover Norquist and 5 is Noam Chomsky, I figure Pelosi falls at 3, maybe at 3.1. Right in the center, or a bit to the left of it. My impression is that the public as a whole falls around 3, perhaps 2.9. It’s hard to measure such things, but take a look here. As much as there is anyone powerful in the USA who speaks for the people, I agree that it is Pelosi.
kay
@The Raven:
I think we just disagree. Am I surprised Obama is taking a consensus approach with the military, people who actually work for him? That he wants a working majority opinion to put the policy in place? No. I’m not. That’s consistent with the way he thinks and operates.
Am I surprised that liberal Congressional leaders pushed back, and they compromised to get it done? No, again. I think that’s how government is supposed to work.
In my humble opinion, we want legislative victories. That’s the gold standard. Not courts. Not executive directives. The inevitable nature of legislative wins is compromise, but they’re worth it. They have a legitimacy that the other two branches don’t, IMO.
kay
@The Raven:
You’d lose the most effective Congressional liberal leader probably of my lifetime to send a message? To who?
You know what, Raven? Stop helping me. You’re killing me with kindness. She’s the liberal power center. If you can’t wrap your mind around that, and you’re going to keep chasing after your profound anger at Obama, maybe you belong in an electoral minority.
AxelFoley
@NobodySpecial:
Might not wanna use Arlo as an example, as I believe he’s a Republican now.
kay
@The Raven:
Nancy Pelosi’s legislative goals are missing from your statement. Why is that? She’s not in there.
Get it through your head. She’s a leader in her own right. She’s not a chess piece on the all-powerful Obama’s board. Our system doesn’t operate the way the way you have this set up.
I swear. Is it because she’s female? I have to ask. Or just because you personally have consigned Congress to some puppet role? Despite all the evidence on Pelosi to the contrary?
kay
@The Raven:
I don’t think you dislike her, Raven. I think you don’t recognize her as an affirmative powerful actor in her own right, and she is.
That’s the sort of willful blindness that indicates, to me, either tunnel vision induced by anger or a really profound misunderstanding of this person.
I’m not sure what she has to accomplish to generate the sort of respect other powerful congressional leaders have generated in this country, and they got it routinely, just be taking the seat. Christ. The idiot Tom Delay got more cred from liberals than Pelosi does.
I think it’s clear that conservatives consider her a huge threat, so they get it. Liberals are still chasing after a speech by Obama, when Pelosi is already in our corner.
soonergrunt
@NobodySpecial:
Here, you would be wrong. The Constitution, Art I, sec 8, specifically gives the following powers to Congress:
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The reason for this is so that if a tyrant were to ever hold office as President, Congress could deny him (or her) an army by refusing to authorize or appropriate funds for one. Every two years this question of whether or not to have an army comes up before Congress, even in time of war. Also, Congress, through the authorization/appropriations power controls everything from force structure to weapon systems procurement and maintenance to literally where we buy our pens and pencils.
soonergrunt
@AxelFoley:
I wouldn’t count on that mattering for shit. He’s not an ideological republican by any stretch of the imagination:
When your primary reason for joining a political party is because you think your presence will make them better, you probably haven’t completely bought into their party platform, unless you’re Joe Lieberman and you have the Connecticut for Lieberman party. Of course, the CfL party threw Lieberman out at their second statewide convention, so that may not be a good example.
sparky
late to the party as usual, but still–it is kinda silly to posit that a decision to hand over control of the issue to the people who oppose it (the armed forces) is somehow progress.
from the NYT
so if you want to pretend that this is a big deal, feel free, but don’t be surprised when people like me say that most of you all seem to be as deluded as most Bush-GOP supporters were/are.
incidentally, it’s really rather telling that this is somehow a bigger deal than that the US continues to wage war against the rest of the planet. i, for one, would think that not killing people is more important but i guess in the land of permanent war that’s not the case, as long as it’s a non-discriminatory murder machine.
NYT today, again
nice to see that everyone has their priorities in place.
The Raven
@kay: “I think you don’t recognize [Pelosi] as an affirmative powerful actor in her own right, and she is.”
Considering that that I wrote, “Pelosi backed the administration into this,” and “As much as there is anyone powerful in the USA who speaks for the people, I agree that it is Pelosi,” I don’t understand where you get this.
Obama’s idea of consensus seems to be agreement among the rich and powerful: aristocratic. If “the bond market” came out against DADT, I think Obama would mount a full-court press against DADT in a minute.
“You’d lose the most effective Congressional liberal leader probably of my lifetime to send a message? To who?”
Not me–perhaps her constituents. There’s a lot of her constituents who have come to hate the Democratic Party, plain and simple. There’s the GLBTs, of course–they’re intensely angry. But there’s also the under-30 group and old San Francisco liberals, for whom the Democrats are too conservative, and older women, who resent the abortion rights compromise of the health insurance plan. If there were a credible left alternative to the Democrats these groups would vote for it in a trice.
sparky
incidentally, a little note to the blog custodians–for some reason, the “edit” feature shows up after i have posted unless i dump the browser cache or close it altogether. annoying in that unless i dump everything i can never see what comes after i’ve shot off my yap. not that i care if anyone responds, just sayin’.
OS X 10.6.3, Safari 4.0.5, Chrome 5.0.375 (horribly buggy, btw)
kay
@sparky:
it is kinda silly to posit that a decision to hand over control of the issue to the people who oppose it (the armed forces) is somehow progress.
You know, it’s interesting, because I pay a lot of attention to the specific language people use, and this formulation comes up again and again when liberals are frustrated in one or another objective. It’s real common on the far Right, too.
There’s really something to the idea that there’s an authoritarian aspect to both ideological poles. I don’t find it all appealing, but different strokes, I guess.
Tea Party Jesus
Bizarrely, Susie Madrak has a post up at Crooks and Liars claiming that this means Obama is selling progressives out by pushing the repeal decision back until after the midterms. There is literally nothing he could do that would make these people happy.
kay
@The Raven:
Forget it, Raven. If you choose to see yourself as powerless, then you’re going to continue to seek a “strong leader” who issues “directives” and get your jollies from a show of force.
For such a wild-eyed lover of freedom, you’re most comfortable with black and white lines of authority and directives from on high.
You know, there’s another way to look at this. The actual activists found an ally in Pelosi and didn’t give up. They ran into a roadblock and negotiated a good deal. They got around it. That’s democracy.
But that destroys the narrative you choose to follow, which is you aligned bravely against the powerful, with, alternately and illogically, the all-powerful Obama thwarting your goals, or the weak Obama, refusing to issue orders.
kay
@The Raven:
Good. I think you should go that way. It won’t work with your unilateral view of the universe, because we have a Congress that requires a majority, but maybe you can elect a President.
You are absolutely incapable of working within a legislative framework, which is a problem, in this country, but you’ve still got court orders and executive orders, and that should satisfy the dictatorial urge you seem to have. Aim high, for President. Congress won’t get you where you want to go.
taylormattd
@Nick:
Amen.
One correction, however.
Please replace the word “supported” with the phrase “continued to angrily oppose and undercut”.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Raven:
The GLBT’s are intensely angry? Really? I’m GLBT. There is a small activist contingent to the GLBT that is always intensely angry, no matter what. All they ever do is show up at rallies and meetings and whine. They are like children who expect to get their way if they scream loud enough. They aren’t willing to work for it (to organize, to write letters, to meet with community leaders, etc). No one pays any attention to them (except some liberals, like the firebaggers), which is probably part of why they are so angry.
There is also the pragmatic activist community. Those are the folks who have been working with Congress, Obama, and typically work with state legislatures, too. They actually make good things happen for the GLBT community.
Then there are the rest of us. We are not angry. We are happy that progress is being made and we understand that is a slow process.
Seriously, don’t presume to speak for my community.
The Raven
@kay: “If you choose to see yourself as powerless”
The strongest popular leader in the country may be able to get the President to allow gays to fight in Afghanistan, maybe. If she asks nicely. If the Senate, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and Joint Chiefs agree.
Being able to beg favors of a President is not democratic power.
Meantime, health care bill that legally requires me to buy insurance in a fixed market, a banking system run by the rich for the rich, subsidies for the wealthy but not the poor in the hardest times of my life, torture, executive privilege, a poisoned Gulf of Mexico and government still risking more undersea gushers, …
I know I’m not powerless, but I also know when my side has lost.
Plenty of food for corvids. Some of it’s contaminated, though.
AxelFoley
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Thank you, Sister.
Awesome username, btw. ;)
moops
wow, so much wanking about your real boogyman, the firebaggers.
really ? that’s what you are blowing your load over ? Your clever made-up straw-man hate group?
jeez
The Raven
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Sister, you think the advocates of a jobs bill aren’t pragmatic enough? The advocates of mortgage cram down? What about the people who fought at Stonewall? Were they pragmatic enough for you?
Unh-unh. A jobs bill would reach, literally, millions of more people than repealing DADT. Likewise a mortage cramdown bill. Yet neither of these are being done. This is political. I’m glad it’s being done–if it actually is done–, but it’s not being done because of your pragmatic activism, though I’m glad you’re an activist, or even because Pelosi is a powerful and effective politician, though she is. This is being done for political reasons, including, probably: a desire to placate the left, a desire to keep Pelosi as House Majority Leader, and a desire to split the left.
Croak!
kay
@The Raven:
They succeeded, and you’re just shouting.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t characterize Pelosi doing her job as “begging”. I guess she could tell her entire caucus and the President and the military to fuck off, but she didn’t get where she is by being stupid.
But that shows toughness! My. Ass.
An inability to work with others in any meaningful way is a weakness, and a fatal flaw in anyone who has to work with others, which is everyone.
I think the part that makes me laugh the most is the people who keep proclaiming they are ” real hippies” ascribe to this weirdly authoritarian and top-down structure, where “strong leaders” make the rules and browbeat people into submission, and every compromise or respectful pose is termed “begging”.
I think that stuff works in the movies. Try that boot on the neck with real people, and they tend to push back.
kay
@The Raven:
And it didn’t even work with Bush, despite liberal mythology. All of his major legislative initiatives failed, post Medicare Drug Benefit. He failed on Social Security and he failed on immigration.
Sending Cheney and Rove down to Congress every Wednesday to give orders wasn’t so smart after all, because they eventually told him to fuck off, as people tend to do with dictatorial managers. They wanted the boot off their neck.
But he was tough! He just wasn’t effective.
Mike Kay
@kay: Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.
When a firebag moron says “san francisco values”‘s Nancy Pelosi is a centrist because she’s not Chomsky, then you know that person is an extremist. That’s like saying the ACLU is centrist because they’re not anarchists.