That’s not exactly what he said, but —
Remember how Obama didn’t repeal don’t ask don’t tell with a wave of his Magic Executive Order Black Jesus wand? And remember how much shit he got from the left for doing precisely what he said he would do, that is: working with Congress and the military in order to repeal the odious law in a way that wouldn’t make all the homophobic haters freak the fuck out?
Turns out, that was a pretty darn good idea:
Gen. Carter Ham said he expects civilians who strongly oppose the move – and some gay rights advocates – will voice their views when the repeal takes Tuesday. But inside the military the prevailing attitude likely will be business-as-usual, with no call for further debate about the merits of repeal, he said.
“My hope, my expectation, my belief is that it will be pretty inconsequential,” he told The Associated Press in a brief interview. His comments echoed the prevailing view among senior U.S. military and civilian officials at the Pentagon, who think repeal will largely be taken in stride.
Hear that? That’s the sound of incrementalism bringing about positive change:
From our own Allan:
There has been, and continues to be, a push-pull between progress and regress, with gay people often on opposing sides in every battle. But when you step back and look at the bigger picture, you cannot deny that progress happens, albeit incrementally and fitfully. It is maddening and frustrating to live your life on the front lines of a movement for social change, as I have. And yet I have seen things in my lifetime that I truly never expected to happen.
Taste the incremental rainbow, comrades.
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Loneoak
I dunno, I do feel let down by Obama here. I really wanted to see Baby Jesus cry.
Baud
Just imagine what Obama could accomplish if he didn’t hate the gays.
Dennis SGMM
Obama did well in getting DADT repealed in a way that will stick. A magic wand could be too easily un-waved by a subsequent president. Once something becomes S.O.P. in the military, like desegregation, it tends not to be easily reversed.
Villago Delenda Est
If the military is as professional as it claims to be, then this is a good statement of what will happen.
And would have been true twenty fucking years ago when Clinton proposed pretty much the same thing.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Does the article state why the incremental approach was better? (And yes, I was someone who supported getting the law repealed rather than Obama ignoring it.)
Short Bus Bully
The elephant in the room is that gays have been serving openly for years now and no one really gives a shit. I know plenty of people currently serving. Several of them are gay and none of them are closeted. No one cares but the Punditocracy.
Baud
To be semantic for a moment, Obama in this case didn’t engage in incrementalism – he thoroughly ended DADT. He did so deliberately, however, rather than rashly and with a great display of sound and fury.
Chris
From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of units where people already know who’s gay and who’s not, they just basically don’t talk about it (DADT). And how old is the average soldier, anyway? Under 30? IOW, from the generation that doesn’t really give a damn about these things? Yeah, I don’t see this having a major effect either.
Although, I met an OSI guy once who proudly proclaimed to a roomfull of ROTC cadets that he’d personally had a bunch of “proponents of an alternate lifestyle” kicked out – like he was a baseball player talking about how many home runs he’d made or something. I suppose the repeal’s going to be hard on crusading assholes like him, who might have to start going after (gasp!) actual criminals to earn a living.
The republic, though, has survived worse.
RobNYNY1957
I always wondered why the end of DADT needed to be “implemented.” When the military was desegregated, people needed to be reassigned and transferred in order to implement the policy, but nothing needs to be done here. Everyone is already fully integrated, they’re just not out.
Linnaeus
Even incrementalism doesn’t come out of a vacuum; just about any social change requires lots of work, advocacy, and occasionally getting in people’s faces.
Zifnab
Joe Lieberman is the real progressive hero! My cognitive dissonance hat is both warm and cozy.
artem1s
seems likely that even if Obama went the executive order route that the military would implement it incrementally just as they did desegregation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans#Integration_of_the_armed_forces
Now that it’s done the whole thing seems like a moot argument. Besides, there will be plenty of opportunity for Baby Jeebus to cry when the first same sex, married couple from NY gets the same housing and benefits as same sex marrieds. Don’t worry, that will be when the fun times begin.
Nied
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time…
Anya
If you were not blinded by your obotness, ABL , you would have realized that Obama did not have a hand in getting DADT repealed. It was the progressive lions who dragged his prejudiced ass and made him do it. Why are you denying Dan Choi’s leadership.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why aren’t gay military dogs allowed to marry yet Obamabots??? President Palin would have made sure there were no unmarried gay dogs in the military by now!
superking
I am sometimes frustrated that the man who talked about the fierce urgency of now and how we had big problems we needed to address came into office and decided to take small steps and half measures. Incrementalism is ok in some circumstances, and I’m not one to complain about how the DADT repeal went down. But he could have done more on other issues and apparently chose not to, perhaps in a false belief that there were constraints he could not affect.
Nied
@Anya:
notsureifserious.jpg
Anya
@RobNYNY1957: Fucking laws how do they work.
@Baud: Also, too, this!
Mnemosyne
@RobNYNY1957:
‘Cause it’s a ginormous bureaucracy that has to make sure everyone knows what’s expected of them before they make the change. This way, no one can try to claim they didn’t know that they didn’t get to beat up their fellow soldier for being gay anymore.
AFAICT, the military has done the job of retraining everyone very thoroughly and in great detail, so I’m guessing that it’s going to be a total non-issue from now on. Which is exactly what we want for everyone involved.
Earl Butz
@Short Bus Bully: This. Not that any non-military persons here will believe you. The only people who have been kicked out in the last decade are guys like Choi who decided to make themselves a problem, and who, I suspect, wanted out for other reasons.
Dollared
That’s great. Now gay people can be part of the military that enforces President Perry’s bloodless fascist coup because liberals were worried about gay marriage and skin color rather than the fact that rich people and fascists were consolidating power and preparing to push our nation into banana-republic hood.
Equal opportunity for all in our new dystopia. Thank you, President-the-economy-will-heal-itself-and-we-all-just-nned-to-tighten-our-belts-like-a-family Obama.
kay
@superking:
I think it’s a valid complaint, because he is measured and incremental (I think it’s partly his nature, and, actually, part of the reason he got elected versus hothead McCain).
But, I have to ask you, would you be willing to take the downside of big risks? Because those go along with Bold Presidential Action. If he went all or nothing, would you give him credit for the “all” you didn’t get? Or would we be focused on the “nothing”? Because that would be part of his political-benefit analysis, even leaving aside policy.
taylormattd
Does this mean Anne Laurie gets to call us names on the front page again? If I express even mild agreement with this post, am I an Obot, an ABL cultist? When dozens of people who post PUMA screeds at FDL show up and relentlessly troll the crap out of ABL, perhaps calling her anti-gay, will I be a mindless ABL drone for pushing back?
Anne Laurie, inquiring minds would like to know. It’s time to once again abandon the front page pootie pics, and dive headfirst into front page ABL bashing!!
keith G
So when you are saying “the left” gave Obama shit, who exactly do you mean? Some did, many did not. Rhetorical laziness should be avoided.
Chris
@superking:
The “incrementalism” debate, to me, evokes getting into the water when it’s a little too cold for your tastes. Yeah, you can do it one little thing at a time, put your toes in, then your feet, then your lower legs, then your upper legs, then your mid-section… but there’s always a point where you just have to dive in, and for a few moments it’s a really cold sensation no matter how much warming up you’ve done.
Civil rights was like that. Lots of incrementalism, the late forties, fifties and early sixties were spent gathering support for it, but eventually, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act had to be rammed through. Wasn’t pleasant, caused the mother of all backlashes, but that moment was going to come sooner or later if civil rights agendas were to be achieved.
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: That’s pretty much it, and per usual, you said it smarter than me.
There are a whole boatload of regulations that need to be re-written, checked, gamed-out (how does this language change affect such-and-so vs. how it affects so-and-such?)
This affects living arrangements, benefits, security clearance rules, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and potentially even things such as Status Of Forces Agreements with other countries.
keith G
Anya, I am more than happy to chastize ABL for being sloppy, but you are being fucking silly.
soonergrunt
@keith G: I HOPE she was being facetious there.
Corner Stone
@keith G: Reboot dog. Anya’s snarking hardcore.
Frankensteinbeck
Keith G:
I believe she is, in fact, being fucking silly.
Anya
@keith G: I am deliberately being silly but you can’t say that some people don’t hold that view.
Corner Stone
This place used to be a reliably good snark n humor site.
Then a bunch of humorless fucks sucked the life out of it.
God damn new era of civility.
Mark D
YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OBOT, ABL!! Don’t you realize Obama is JUST LIKE BUSH?!?!
Whoa. Wait a second …
Sorry ’bout that. I was apparently channeling the average FDL commenter there for a second.
Oh, and what Short Bus Bully typed upthread: There’ve been gays in the military since forever, some of whom have served openly without their fellow service members snitching on them. Hell, our best friend is in a unit that’s pretty much 90% lesbians, and no one inside or outside of their unit has had any issues whatsoever with it.
Most in the military* don’t give a shit if someone is gay, black, Jewish, whatever. They just care if someone does their job correctly. That’s it. The rest is irrelevant.
(* Note that I work with a co. that serves the military and have for 8 years, so I have some experience in this area.)
Anya
@Corner Stone: Yeah, keith G, listen to my boyfriend Corner Stone.
retr2327
“Gen. Carter Ham said he expects civilians who strongly oppose the move – and some gay rights advocates – will voice their views when the repeal takes Tuesday.”
For starters, they’ll probably want Tuesday back.
keith G
Ok, rebooted and snarkometer send back to Acme.
Corner Stone
@Anya: Well, I am up for one last fling before your upcoming nuptials.
No one needs to know about you and I.
ABL
@keith G: “Obama got shit from the left” is different than “The Left gave Obama shit.”
Silly comments should also be avoided.
Corner Stone
Watch yourself Keith G. She just dispensed the pretext.
Or as stuckinred is fond of saying, she just unassed the AO.
Anya
@Corner Stone: I took Tom Brady off the list, so there’s an opening. Are you willing to be an OBOT?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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As usual, the logical argument implied here is that if things eventually work out ok, then every step along the way taken by every individual was the right step. Also too, any other steps which would have hastened justice would have been the wrong steps. I thank Angry Balloonbagger Logician for tutoring us all on this point again.
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Corner Stone
@Anya: Damn. Good luck in your future endeavors.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Nied:
…like tears in rain.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Earl Butz: No, there have been plenty of documented cases where someone was kicked out for their behavior outside of their duty hours. That was the problem with DADT in the first place: It did exactly opposite of its title.
boss bitch
omg that is fucking hilarious.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: Yeah. I don’t even remember the discussion about, say, ending it only for non-combat positions first, or only for officers, or only in New York. Passing DADT in the early 90’s was actually the incremental change…
Mnemosyne
@Dollared:
Yes, who cares about those silly “civil rights” when there’s a war on? No wonder FDR is your hero — sure, he refused to support a federal anti-lynching law to protect African-Americans and threw Japanese-American children in prison camps, but he got us the New Deal, so no harm, no foul, amirite?
ZenPoseur
I know you don’t mean it this way, ABL, but harping on LGBT issues does eventually start to come off sounding like an attack.
The LGBT movement has always been loud, raucous, and confrontational, because it’s what WORKS. Insofar as we were screaming “End DADT NOW NOW NOW!!!”, it’s because that’s what we do. That’s what we do because that’s what’s generated results for us over the past 30-40 years. We understand incrementalism. I dare say we understand incrementalism better than anyone else in the Democratic party. We’ve had to live it, ya know? We’ve seen the slow forward progress, as we’ve watched ourselves getting older, wondering if we’ll be dead by the time we’re treated anything like equals.
There’s a difference between making loud and politically unreasonable demands — which has been an effective tactic that’s served us well — and the PUMA crowd who are flinging racist stereotypes because the president has failed to meet a standard that no other Democratic president has ever been held to. The difference is, the PUMAs were always looking for an excuse to resort to racism. They’re racists. That’s what they do. Racists are always looking for an excuse to say, “I’m not racist, but…”
But the LGBT movement is just doing what it’s always done, regardless of the president’s skin color. (Though I’m sure there are LGBTs who are also PUMAs, which muddies the field.)
I guess I’m saying… I dunno what I’m saying. I’m just frustrated at seeing so much of this. Just, please check your fire, is all I’m asking.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@ZenPoseur:
More good, dependable balloonbagger logic. When someone says, “I’m not racist” you can automatically infer that they are racist. Therefore, if someone says, “I am racist” that must surely mean, following your analysis, that they are the opposite, ie, non-racist. Which are you? Are you a racist, or are you not a racist?
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ZenPoseur
Which is, of course, not what I said. You’ve just given a great example of the “affirmation of the consequent” fallacy. The fact that racists deny their racism does not imply that denial of racism is only present in racists.
See also: The lying-door truthful-door puzzle from the movie Labyrinth.
Nice try, though.
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know about Dollared, but FDR isn’t my hero for the New Deal, he’s my hero for preventing fascism from taking over America, for losing this whole country to the people on the Right who thought Hitler and Mussolini were “great men” with good ideas that we should consider in America. Like Obama, FDR was up against honest to God fascists who were (and are) fundamentally opposed to American Democracy. FDR’s actions defeated American economic fascism so thoroughly that Keynesian economics completely dominated the political landscape for forty years after he died. Frankly, I’d be happy to have lost on both DADT and the ACA if there had been some accountability for the unAmerican, unconstitutional and undemocratic activities of the Bush Administration. Because as far as I’m concerned, DADT repeal is a poor exchange for never seeing a President to the left of Reagan again for the rest of my life.
superking
@kay:
That’s a good question. I think my problem is that I don’t see the constaints that Obama sees. Or whoever is running his strategy sees. We will never know if he could have succeeded by going big, because he hasn’t really tried.
A year and half later, the healthcare debate still blows my mind. He had a plan he campaigned on, but when he got into office, he backed off a lot of it in order to get “buy-in” from drug companies and others normally opposed. Then he stepped back and told congress to do all the rest of the work. At this point, there is no way to prove whether he was right or wrong, because congress passed something and it did a lot, even if it wasn’t enough.
What he didn’t do was lay out a clear plan, argue for it, cajol congress, and whip up support. If he had been clear and direct and worked the crowd, like every other president has in recent memory, who knows whether he would have got more or less or anything. I just don’t understand how a guy who gave such great speeches while campaigning can’t find the time or ability to effectively communicate Democratic ideals to the public. I really thought that was what I was voting for: Someone who could change the conversation by clearly communicating progressive/liberal/Democratic ideals. He just doesn’t do that.
I am personally willing to risk more in order to get more. I think Obama is risk averse because he believes the country will not accept some changes. I think the country will accept those changes if people understand them and we work to change people’s expectations and beliefs.
So, to sum up: You can take risks and get nothing, or you can risk nothing and get nothing. But you can’t hit targets you don’t aim for.
Corner Stone
@ZenPoseur:
Thank the FSM we have you to tell us the real difference.
Thank you for your service here at BJ!
RalfW
This gives me more hope that mistermix’s Ugly Map will go away some day than all the comments there about the young people.
Getting the ranks integrated and proving to be no big deal will matter more, IMO, than kids today saying “meh.”
Kudos to Obama. There, I said it (and never was a complainer).
Odie Hugh Manatee
Like it or not, most change is incremental. People don’t like ‘sticker shock’, the immediate changing of something that they are used to seeing one way being swapped for another. Humans seem to resist change, preferring to stay to ‘the old ways’ of doing things unless they perceive an immediate benefit to themselves. As has been noted above, heteros who support gay marriage do so without much passion because it isn’t an immediate problem in their lives, they aren’t directly affected and there are ‘more important things’ that they would rather put their energy (if any) in to to accomplish whatever.
Those in the military who are opposed to the change have been seeing the trend for some time. The longer the ‘problem’ was pondered by the top brass, the more inevitable the change appeared to them. While some in the military will still be opposed to the change, I’m sure that others who were opposed to it have resigned themselves to it happening and have somewhat accepted it. Over time, they will see that it was no big deal and the ‘issue’, for them, will become a distant memory.
Progress wouldn’t be progress if it wasn’t incremental in nature. While I can understand the anger of activists who wanted change NOW!, something like this wouldn’t be able to happen any other way than it has. Obama may not have delivered what you wanted and when you wanted it but he delivered and that’s what matters.
Please give him credit for that.
kay
Superking,
Thanks for the response. I wpuld just say that Obama has been an extremely succesful person with the temperament he has and the approach he has, and he’s 50 years old. I think it is unlikely he is going to change.
As far as the ACA, I think it is a no,brainer for liberals to support a law that extends single payer to millions of poor people. That alone assures my support.
But, I do think your complaint is valid. If this person, Obama, is not the sort of leader ypu were looking for, of course you’re disappointed.
quannlace
Hah, in the category of ‘The more things change, the more….”
This is one of the same damn excuses given by reactionaries against women’s suffrage; from the mid-1800’s all the way up to when women were finally given the vote.
Let women vote? They’ll go for the handsomest or most smooth-talking candidate!
The other argument that was cited back then was ‘letting women vote will un-sex them.”
I still don’t know what the hell that was supposed to mean.
Dollared
@Citizen Alan: Thanks. But Memn thinks that FDR should have declared war on the south in the middle of the great depression, and invaded Texas instead of Normandy.
jefft452
Short Bus Bully
“The elephant in the room is that gays have been serving openly for years now and no one really gives a shit”
Yes, but that has always been true in wartime
In July of 45 you could have showed up in panties and a bra and tongue kissed the Captain and you’d still be dodging kamikazes
A month later you could get thrown out for wishing the next movie was a musical
Earl Butz
“… guys like Choi who decided to make themselves a problem, and who, I suspect, wanted out for other reasons”
Why?
Why wouldn’t they “make themselves a problem” because they think DADT is unjust and frankly, anti-American?