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?
