Greg Sargent says that the Pentagon review of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy “will leave GOP moderates with no reasons left to oppose repeal.” Okay, let’s assume that the there actually are some GOP moderates. No, wait. Check that. Why would we assume such a silly thing? The reasons to oppose repeal are threefold. First, many members of Congress are immersed in a culture that absolutely abhors homosexuality and they won’t want to face the other members of their congregation if they vote to let gays serve openly in the military. Second, these people don’t give a shit about facts. Third, and most importantly, denying the president a victory on this issue makes him look weak, alienates a key Democratic constituency, and pisses off liberals. That’s a trifecta that even ‘moderate’ Republicans are powerless to resist.
I don’t honestly know how much more evidence we need to see before we begin to believe that the Republicans will never do the right thing if they think they can get some mileage out of doing the wrong thing.
John McCain once said that he’d consider changing his mind about DADT if the Joint Chiefs and theater commanders advised him to do so. He lied. He just doesn’t like gay people. I’ll be shocked if McCain listens to the commanders or his wife or his daughter or anyone else for that matter.
But, maybe, just maybe, we’ll have the two or three votes in the Senate that we’ll need to repeal the policy. I could see the Maine senators and maybe Scott Brown or Mark Kirk going for it. But, then again, they almost never miss an opportunity to piss off liberals. Can they resist this time?
John McCain once said that he’d consider changing his mind about DADT if the Joint Chiefs and theater commanders advised him to do so. He lied. He just doesn’t like gay people. I’ll be shocked if McCain listens to the commanders or his wife or his daughter or anyone else for that matter.
And according to TPM, Cranky McSame owes Secretary Gates an apology. It seems the GOP really does want to turn into the party of George Wallace.
Anti-gay sentiment is one of the tools that the GOP uses to bring its base out from under their rocks at election time. The Republicans aren’t going to give up without a fight, because they worry that if they cave on the gay thing, then they risk losing some of the Bubba vote.
Another reason why republicans will happily and unanimously vote against DADT repeal is because they know full well that “true progressives” will join with the republicans in blaming it all on Obama.
Since there is guaranteed to be virtually no-one to push back against republicans (well except for Obama, solo), there is simply no downside for republicans in acting this way. Hell – I bet a not-insignificant number of Congressional Dems join with republicans. Since Obama will be the one to catch all the blame from both conservatives and lefty bloggers, there is simply no downside.
Will all the phone calls in the world make McSame vote for DADT repeal? Bad Nelson? Besides, Obama promised it would be repealed.
According to the Maddow Blog, a few other Republicans who may be gettable on DADT repeal are:
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) – (202) 224-6665
John Ensign (Nevada) – (202) 224-6244
Richard Lugar (Indiana) – (202) 224-4814
Now would be a good time to call them. Talking points and contact information for other key Senators to call on DADT repeal are at my blog –
http://www.winningprogressive.org/gay-military-democrats-republicans
Or, they can just have the repeal’s supporters hijack the whole lame-duck session.
I thought the Moderate Senators saying they would support repeal was just a trap to make the Dems put it on the floor to waste time so they then could change their mind at the end. It is all a set up to prevent anything from getting done and bleed out the Senate calendar days. Chris Dodd still loves the Senate rules though. Good for him.