The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Decader's picture

    Repealing DADT - Obama bets on the home stretch

    By Decader on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 3:39pm |

    Yeah, Barry - we get it. You count votes. You know repeal's going to pass, so you get your army of eunuchs (former campaign munchkins now denatured) to start hitting the telephones.

    Nothing like having the bill barely get to vote, having all of the President's hopes relying on the Log Cabin Republicans, of all the absurdities (will Republicans carrying Obama's colostomy bag be our image for the rest of his presidency, all 22 remaining months of it?)

    And now that key parts fell into place (well, really, key parts fell out of place, like the Republicans winning on extending tax cuts, further undercutting estate tax, punting on the Omnibus bill...  Oh, but goodness golly gee whillikers, Obama will get his favorite START Treaty pet project safe and sound, that lovely cross-the-aisles that no longer seems so cross-the-aisles-ish now that the famed Jr. Senator is a sitting President. Sitting permanently on the wrong side of the aisle.), well we can get to campaigning in earnest, can't we?

    So back to the eunuchs - I knew I'd seen them before, that focused, humorless stare - we used to call them College Republicans. It's all converged these days. We're all Stepford Wives.

    2 years ago people seemed to think they were voting on a sure thing. Sadly they were.

    Might I say I'm really glad DADT looks on its way to repeal. But my stomach's going to need more whiskey than Maalox to endure another round of Barry patting himself on the back - yesterday for how he got br'er rabbit but good by throwing him in the Briar Patch, today how he personally invoked the sun to rise in the east, squinting at it real mean and hard, and by gosh by goshen it did.

    Just make sure you show up for the photo-op, Barry. It'll be a good reunion. Once upon a time these people were part of your base.

    Update: Looks like Republicans are giving START trouble - Barry may have to find a way to throw DADT Repeal under the bus. Expect a walk down Pennsylvania Ave. shortly. Heads will roll.

    Comments

    Actually I just put a teaspoon of baking soda in water. Cheaper than the popular stuff.


    by Richard Day on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 5:34pm

    Your bitterness works just fine for me; yes, he'll take the bows, even while his DoJ continues appeal judges' rulings ending DADT.  We're assured that doing so is a legal must, but it has to be a crock of crap.

    http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/17637/obama-doj-to-appeal-federal-judges-ruling-on-dadt

    If I had a better memory, I could remember where, during the course of the day, I saw a squib that Republicans were threatening to block start from getting to the floor id DADT does.  I was mainly reading at FP mag, but it doesn't make sense it was there.  I just checked at Huffpo; nothing there.

    Just found it on Pam's House Blend's ticker; now what calls will the President be making?

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46559.html

     


    by we are stardust on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 5:50pm

    McConnell uncertain GOP can block New START, 'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal

    Michael O'Brien,.The Hill, 12/17/10 04:41 PM ET

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is "pretty confident" the DREAM Act can be defeated, though.…

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/134303-mcconnell-uncert...


    by artappraiser on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 1:13am

    I didn't know that Collins, Snowe, Brown, and Murkowski were log cabin Republicans.  One learns something new everyday.

    From the Post

    Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) are sponsoring the bill to end "don't ask, don't tell" that passed the House this week. Supporters expect a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate now that Collins and three other Republicans - Scott Brown (Mass.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) - are expected to vote with 57 members of the Senate Democratic caucus.

    It is kind of sad to see someone in an attempt to maintain a some narrative about Obama write so disparaging of those who are working to end DADT:

    His grassroots campaign network, Organizing for America (OFA), orchestrated a lobbying blitz this week that mirrors what Democrats did earlier this year to rally support for the sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system.

     

    OFA, run out of the Democratic National Committee, e-mailed its millions of supporters Friday to press the urgency of ending the law while Democrats still control Congress. "If we don't seize this chance, there's no telling when we might have this opportunity," OFA Director Mitch Stewart wrote Friday.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 6:23am

    E-mailed on Friday? This stuff has been in the works for a long time. What did they do up to Friday? Anyone here on the OFA list? Anyone been seeing anything useful out of this group forevuh?

    If you read the link Stardust pointed to, you see Obama's ploy: "we need to end DADT legislatively!" but every time someone inserts language to end it legislatively, he pushes to take it out. Then of course on the judicial side, he says DoJ has to upload "the law" when it's actually a presidential directive that they really don't have to fight in the courts.

    (the one exception here I think is that a lower court judge's stay on DADT was excessive, whether you're for or against DADT - a lower judge court should not just be able to forcefully demand implementation of a decision on the US military. There are appeals that have to be taken into account, and the lower court ruling is only the first in a series)

    With Lieberman in charge of DADT it got put on to review for most of a year, until after elections, until the Dems had lost the House, pushed to the military to decide, in general given as much rope to hang itself as possible as the Republicans get more control in January. My bet is anything Lieberman's doing now is just to find a way to get re-elected in 2012.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 9:24am

    I have to laugh when people use the argument "he or she is only do this or that in order to get re-elected."  I mean, isn't that the basis of when we ask people to call their representatives and tell them how you feel.  It isn't to change their mind with a phone message, it is to let them know that the people who vote for them feels a certain way and if they hope to get re-elected, they should vote this or that way. Welcome to democracy.

    Moreover, the reason that we don't want the courts to decide this issues is that it doesn't allow for a more orderly implementation, and therefore a more effective implementation.  The legislative approach takes into account that like any significant organizational change, whether governmental, for-profit, or non-profit, is going to encounter resistance and even those who will actively seek to derail it.  The legislative approach is one which is best suited to ensure the resistance and its impact is minimized. 

    And so what if the OFA just showed up yesterday.  What has that got to do with anything?  They are helping a good cause and should be commended for it.  So what will be your next blog - blasting those volunteers who just show up at soup kitchens on Christmas - "where were they the rest of the year? those bastards."


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 9:43am

    I was wondering if I'd have to play that back.

    Yes, normally politicians do things to get elected.

    And normally they don't rub cowshit all over their constituents, wash it off with a bucket of piss, giggle mirthfully as the constituents start to choke, and then wag a finger blaming it all on them as they towel off.

    Lieberman used top Democratic brass to get elected as an independent, and then turned around as the top sky-is-falling AIPAC supporter to campaign against the Democratic party, speak at the GOP convention, and threaten the party that he'd caucus with the other side if we didn't share all his security paranoia.

    So Mr. Knight-in-Shining-Armor thinks this will get him back in favor with the Connecticut electorate. Or doesn't really think so, since he didn't really pick the most direct route.

    With DADT, well, sending something back to committee is typically a very good way to kill it, especially a military committee during "support the troops" decade (or double-decade the way this is going). Having this happen after the election, crammed into the teabaggers trying to have their madhatter tea party early, it's pretty miraculous that repeal has made it on the agenda. And while it's hail mary time for Lieberman, Obama didn't break a sweat on this one.

     


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:18pm

    Well, I don't live in Senator Droppy's state, and if I did this wouldn't make me vote for him (nor would I have voted for him in his last election - thank you so much Connecticut). 

    But hey if thinking what he is thinking gets him to do the right thing for once, cool.  At least he is doing one right thing.  He's still an asshat.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 4:13pm

    Right, the post's more about Obama once again threading the middle, trying to take credit for working both sides of the fence.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 4:44pm

    Re: OFA and "so what"? It's just opportunistic crap.

    If your car's in the ditch, and I sit watching people push it out, and then I shove myself to the front of the line as it's getting righted on the road?

    Here's a basic assessment of OFA from Time:

    http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2016973,00.html

    Took $30 million for campaign 2010 and did what?

    It's all about Obama 2012.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:49pm

    I see a compromise here. You ask, I'll tell.


    by quinn esq on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 11:02am

    Was more fun as "you show me yours, I'll show you mine".

    Which I guess led us into this DADT predicament in the first place.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:36pm

    Here's Jane Hamsher's take on the issue and the recent timelines and machinations; my nightmare scenario was Obama feeling he needed any of the remaining time to get START II passed.

    "As of Thursday, it was unlikely that either the DREAM Act or DADT was going to come up for a vote in the Senate in this session. Talking Points Memo was reporting that the White House was “stalling the DADT vote” by insisting that the START nuclear reduction treaty have priority, which meant that there would not be enough time to bring it up this session.

    “New START can pass next year; DADT can’t,” said Kevin Drum. “It’s that simple. Repeal of DADT should come first and New START should follow.”

    Suddenly on Friday, however, “the Senate went its own way,” reported Dave Dayen. So what happened?

    • Friday morning, Senate Republicans humiliated Reid and Durbin by pulling support for spending bill. As a face saving measure, Reid got them to allow a vote on DADT and DREAM Act. Good news for both DADT and DREAM activists. But because of their poor negotiating skills, the Democrats have now given the GOP both the massive tax cuts they wanted AND the ability to control funding of the government.
    • The White House knows they’re in trouble with liberals over the tax cut deal. They’re reaching out to make amends with the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka, the Steelworker’s Leo Gerard, AFT’s Randi Weingarten, and SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry. Unfortunately, making amends means forcing them to sit in a room with traitor Hilda Solis, who is trying to destroy them by pushing through Obama’s NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade Deal, and their personal labor Chia Pet, the UAW’s Bob King.
    • Even Joe Lieberman was tweaking both Reid and Obama over the failure of DADT to be taken up this year.  Lieberman seems to want to use DADT as a way to restore his street cred with liberals in anticipation of a tough 2012 Senate race.
    • On Friday, Lieberman actually started whipping on the vote, something that actually hadn’t been done before. As Jon Walker notes, that’s what “fierce advocacy” actually looks like.
    • If the DADT repeal didn’t come up, everyone from HRC to Joe Manchin to yours truly was saying that Obama had the power to end himself.  The White House didn’t want to have to take that step, but they might have been forced to in order to get the issue out of the headlines.  The last thing Obama wants is to be heckled by DADT activists on the campaign stump.  And given the choice between a Presidential signing statement and a congressional repeal, the Department of Defense would choose the latter.  Congressional repeal gives them time to implement the policy change more gradually, and less fear that another administration will come in and change course.
    • At this point, everyone just wants a win, and DADT looks like the best chance they’ve got.

    To everyone who worked hard to pass the DADT repeal: congratulations.  Your willingness to never take “no” for an answer, to make things extremely uncomfortable for those in power, and to work hard at deligitimizing veal pen gatekeepers who stood in the way of your objective should be a model for all activists."


    by we are stardust on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 11:13am

    Ah, Jane Hamsher.  The Ahab to Obama's Great White Whale of progressive politics.


    by brewmn on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 12:02pm

    But do you disagree with her here, Brew? 


    by we are stardust on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 12:09pm

    Brew sides with Obama by default and habit - no shade of subtlety will do.

    Thanks for publishing Hamsher's notes.

    One thing it does highlight, is that at the end of the day the public won't remember anything but the final vote.

    Which means if you can play both sides and show up at the photo-op, you always win. Except in that faraway land where they expect people to have spines and walk erect.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:40pm

    The Senate cloture motion on DADT JUST PASSED: 63-33.  Far-freaking out!


    by we are stardust on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 11:51am

    DADT just passed the Senate 65-31.  C-span won't boot.


    by we are stardust on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:31pm

    Amen to that.  Well, not the C-Span part....  Wink


    by LisB on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 3:46pm

    Well, it's not quite "DADT passed", but the repeal can go for majority vote tomorrow.

    Then it needs to be signed off on by Obama, Robert Gates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Still room to be optimistic, but still wondering if Lucy's going to pull that football away.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 4:43pm

    Okay, scratch that - the repeal passed, hadn't realized.


    by Decader on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 4:58pm

    Ya had me doubtin' me sanity therrre fer a minute, me boy.  Cool  I 'uz pretty shure I'd been seein' two different votes, laddie.


    by we are stardust on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 5:29pm