Now that they've finally re-acquired some tenuous power, Dems ought to stay away from those two issues, at least for a while. You'd think that the party would concentrate on ending the war, ending vote fraud, ending corruption, ending runaway spending and -- finally -- ending the Dubya administration altogether.
Instead, a couple of Dems found a .45 in Dad's dresser drawer and decided to aim it at their own heads:
Two leading House Democrats said yesterday that they intend to reverse the 13-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays and lesbians in the military when Congress comes under Democratic control in January.Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity must be thanking their dark gods. Get ready to welcome the new Republican stranglehold on power in 2008.
Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, said he plans to hold congressional hearings early next year of the House Armed Services Subcommittee, which he is likely to chair, on a bill that would allow homosexuals to serve in the armed forces.
I recall 1993 well. I recall how Bill Clinton wasted most of his political capital on this one issue. Most of the country turned against him. The 1993 debacle led directly to anti-Clinton mania and to the 1994 Republican takeover.
Beware all "should be" formulations . What you or I think "should be" the military's policy toward gays is irrelevant. The operative term here is not "should be" but IS. There is no more difficult word in the English language than IS; idealists hate the very sound of it. Nevertheless, it IS a fact that any Democratic association with this issue will hand Congress back to the Republicans. The situation should be otherwise; alas, we must deal with what IS.
10 comments:
now, careful, joe.
i hear your point, and if history did not budge, i would agree with you.
but observe what has happened. or better, remember what happened with the civil rights movement.
remember how the black caucus and king were really pushing kennedy, and then johnson, but they kept being asked to back off a wait, the time just wasn't right, there was too much resistance, the electorate wouldn't stand for it, etc.
i can remember how offended african americans were. you're asking us, after centuries of slavery and bigotry and oppression and abuse, to chill a little longer because you crackers can't quite find the way to your 'christian' morals?? how is it again you expect to ask us to do that?
it was a good thing they did not wait, on numbers of dimensions. even though we lost martin in the process, among too many others.
the fact was that the general public was more ready than the politicians thought. what the politicians were worried about was the southern voters, and with good reason.
but after enough lynchings and murders and bombings and riot busting police brutality, even the south started getting real religion on the matter.
the fact is, the public is changing on the issue of gay rights. the referenda on the matter in some states notwithstanding, overall in the country, it's just not that big a deal.
and it will become even less of a big deal as time goes on, with the younger generation just having no time to fret about such nonsense.
quite honestly, i'd be willing to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is in fact the perfect time to push this issue, and here's why.
the repugs who try to make an issue of this with the dems will be forcing the world to be reminded of just how brazenly hypocritical the republican party has been about this issue. in doing so, their prejudice will expose them even further; they'll look just like the unamerican bigots they are.
in short, they risk looking like fools at this stage of the game. even the media talking heads who try to run with the talking points will risk that, and it's an easy call which ones will go for it. ooh, o'really is all over meehan with this gay bill! yeah, hannity and coulter and malkin, oh my! drudge and savage and beck and bortz and the whole motley crew.
the public managed to get the hypocrisy of this administration pretty well despite the media propaganda. i believe they'll see right through the hypocrisy and polticization of the gay issues just as easily.
ps. also, clinton's don't ask/don't tell was more - in my opinion - disastrous because it wasn't a position, it was a political maneuver. the rightwing jumped on it because it looked like he was 'soft on gays' (do with that what you will), and because the position itself was soft, he couldn't take the high road and make a principled stand. instead of taking the strong stand that repugs could not defend against, except to shout that the bible tells them so, the took a weak stand that made them vulnerable. the repugs did their vulture thang, which they do so well.
instead, clinton should have simply said there is no more room in the american military for discriminating against gays than there is for discriminating against blacks. we don't do the latter, and we will not do the former. period. let's take it to the supremes.
instead, he actually alienated many in the dem party because he took this wobbly nonposition that said only that, well, we sort of don't want to openly discriminate, but we also don't want to be openly gay because we don't want to offend anyone for political reasons, so we're essentially buckling to their holierthanthou bullying and just pretending like we're doing something, when in fact we've taken the most NONposition in the history of american politics.
the repugs jumped on clinton then because he didn't have anyone backing him up! and he didn't have anyone backing him up because it was such a nonposition.
things really are different now.
the world after brokeback mountain is qualitatively different than it was before it, about like the world after easy rider or guess who's coming to dinner, compared to before them.
i could be wrong; the precise moment may not be now or this year. but it's close. and getting closer. hence the bill. i mean, one of meehan's colleagues from MA is openly gay. how do franks' repug colleagues face him and say he is a lesser man? how do his dem colleagues do that? how do they face their closeted colleagues through all this, now that foley and haggard are out? how do they face their black colleagues, who are doing deja vu in waves through all this. how do they insist on openly discriminating?
how would any of us do that?
if you're going to let the dem party get bogged down - yet again - in making policy decisions based on whether or not we'll lose or gain power (which sounds just too painfully familiar), we've lost our moral high ground, and our reason for winning in the first place.
denying gays equal rights and privileges afforded others solely because of sexual orientation is just plain wrong, it's unamerican, and it's unconstitutional.
the sooner the dems take up this banner as a symbol for what america is all about, the sooner we get the party back, the country back, hell, the sooner we get sanity back.
Oh, for chrissakes. The world is NOT different simply because Ang Lee made a damn movie.
Culturally, things have gotten worse since 1993. The "Left Behind" series had a far greater impact on this country than "Brokeback Mountain" ever did.
Timing is all. If Kerry had not been associated (wrongly) with gay marriage -- if the issue had come to the fore in 2005 instead of 2004 -- we would now be bitching and complaining about a Democratic president. And our troops would be home.
The proper analogy is not to the civil rights struggle of the 1960s but to the struggles of the 1930s and '40s.
Imagine if FDR had said "Let's integrate the military" in 1932. Or '33. Or '35. Or '38. Or '41. Or '43. At each step along the way, a different set of consequences would have occurred, but the overall direction history would have taken is, in hindsight, clear enough.
Would integration have been the right thing to do? Of course. FDR probably would have personally preferred an integrated military. His wife certainly felt that way. But politically, what would have happened if they had "gone to the mat" on that issue?
No four terms for FDR. No first term if he had made such a proposal in 1932. No Democratic majorities in Congress. No New Deal. No Social Security. No Medicare. No progressive taxation. No Keynesian spending to get us out of the Depression.
With the Democrats tagged as the party of "nigger lovers" and the mainstream Republican party decredibilized, political debate would have fallen to the extremes. Upton Sinclair types vs. the Coughlinites.
I am 100% convinced that the latter would have won the day, if only because they would have received major funding. And what would have happened THEN?
America would have stayed out of the war, or might even have provided aid to the fascists. Germany would have taken Britain. No aid for Russia. The Nazis would have carried out their plans to eliminate one third of the Russian people then enslave or "Aryanize" the rest. Hitler would have controlled vast resources and a vast slave population.
Then the Axis would have turned toward America. The long-range plan there was, as I recall, to let the Japanese take everything west of the Mississippi while Germany would have taken everything to the east.
And how well would black people in America have fared THEN?
This is not a far-fetched scenario. This is precisely what WOULD have happened if FDR had demanded integration of the military before our damn-fool pig-headed populace was ready to accept it.
And I would argue that our entire recent lurch toward fascism -- wiretaps, torture, concentration camps, "Patriot" acts, rigged elections -- has its origins in the political opportunity Clinton handed his enemies when he made his well-intended attempt to allow gays to serve.
Imagine if this country had had that debate after the budget was balanced, instead of 1993! Not only would we now have gays in the military, we would probably have achieved nationalized health insurance in 1995. And pundits would be saying that Republicans need to move to the left if they want to achieve power.
But noooo...ideological purists insisted that we had to have the debate in 1993, even though talking about it THEN actually set the cause BACK.
Sometimes doing the right thing means choosing the least terrible of two options. A wise person once told me that doing the right thing can mean crashing the airplane into a field instead of crashing it into a building.
Yeah, I'm asking gay people to "chill a little longer." And it's a rotten thing to ask. But we must be realistic. What I call "Id" issues -- below-the-waist issues -- brought neoconservatism to power. And I GUARANTEE you that noecons will come back to power on those same issues.
The stakes are dire. We now stand THAT close to the abyss of Fascism, financial ruin, or both. We must first back away from that abyss (end the war, restore habeus corpus, all of it) before asking the populace to re-think the prejudices which have been at the root of Republican control.
Once they solve the worst problems created by W, the Dems sufficient political capital to try another idealistic maneuver on behalf of gays. Right now, that capital just isn't there.
...egh. I think the two Dems "attempting" this may know the capital isn't there, too. This feels like an exploratory move to me, and one that isn't likely to get very far. Can't tell how that's going to play to gay voters, or voters who love their gay family members, especially if our rightist MSM tries to make of this effort (or, "effort," whichever it is) what Joseph fears it will. Will an alleged move to undo "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" look pathetically insincere to gay progressives and the progressives who sympathize with their plight, or will it be viewed as a long-overdue attempt to shore up some more of the damage done to gay rights by the right (and, in the eyes of many gay Democrats I know, the still gay-unfriendly DNC)?
And here's another thing that rankles me about the 1993 debacle: Clinton ended up pissing off many gays because he belatedly decided that it might be a bad idea to destroy his entire presidency over one issue.
Dems cannot win on this issue. They can only lose.
I just keep wondering why gays are still the most politically expendable. Why are they always the ones thrown under the bus? Oh, that's right - they're the sacrificial lambs looking down over the empty field, right?
You may be right, Joe, though I hope that you are not, because of the critical between now and 1993. First, most of us did not share the hatred of Clinton's predecessor, GHWB, that we do of his son. This is not the sort of collective rage that will be lost in two short years. Americans are at the precipice and said - no shouted - on Nov. 7th that we hate the view. I'm convinced that we as a nation are now more traumatized by the unrelenting facism that has followed 9/11 than by the tragedy itself.
The world is a vastly different place now, and Democrats are finally using this fact to their advantage. I would argue that the ONE way to lose this advantage is to piss away the reasons we won in the first place.
Oh, and if we really want to talk political pragmatism, think about what DIDN'T exist in 1993 - blogs. Politicians and others who advocate for discrimmination against those they enjoy sleeping with will no longer be tolerated. The closet isn't such an easy place to hide anymore - just ask Mark Foley, Ted Haggard - or any number of military personnel.
Kim in PA
Sorry, but I honestly believe that you're fooling yourself, Kim.
Hell, I don't want to hit the research library, but maybe I'll have to. I know that there were polls published in '93 on the subject of gays openly serving in the military. And I'll betcha two donuts that the idea was more acceptable to the populace then than it would be today.
Does anyone have any current poll numbers on that question?
I do know that the numbers of Jesusmaniacs and Creationists have increased since then. Culturally, we are LESS tolerant now than we were then. I am 100% convinced of that fact.
Since '93 we've had militias, right-wing conspriacy theories, Cable News, Coulter, Hannity, Savage, O'Reilly, endless Republican talking heads on TV and radio, endless alumni of Republican think tanks, Regnery Books, HarperCollins, megachurches, growing televangelism, "Left Behind," "Passion of the Christ," 9/11 -- and no small number of right-wing blogs. Do you honestly think that sites like Daily Kos and TPM have effectively counteracted all of that?
I don't.
Joe, how old were you in '93? I ask, because you do not seem to remember it well at all, given your incorrect (IMO) characterization of those events.
CLINTON did not choose that policy issue for the first fight of his presidency, nor was his proposal to institute a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for gays in the military.
Clinton had literally about 200 proposals, put out in writing, in book length with Gore, called 'Putting America First.' One of his proposals, and indeed a campaign promise as all those proposals were, was to 'integrate' the armed services with gays by executive order, just as Truman had similarly integrated blacks into the armed services.
It was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), who decided to make that particular one of hundreds of Clinton's proposals the first subject of Congressional attention. Nunn was adamantly opposed, and said that if Clinton took the step of amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice by his own executive order, the Congress, led by Nunn, would pass a revision of the UCMJ overturning Clinton's proposed change. Of course, Clinton could then veto that bill, but to forestall that, Nunn quickly rounded up a veto-proof number of potential co-sponsors to his suggested legislative reinstatement of no gays in the military.
Only then, as SAM NUNN (and the Democratic controlled Senate) had made this merely one of hundreds of Clinton initiatives THE first proposal given the Congress's attention, did Clinton come up with 'don't ask, don't tell.'
And that was to smartly limit the damage to his presidency, and conserve the political capital that he needed to a) pass the Brady bill, b) pass the tax hikes on the top 1 to 2 percent and c) get NAFTA and GATT passed against the opposition of the Democratic party majority.
While c) has been bad for the country in the long run, the GOP supported it, and it never has become much of a campaign issue.
A) and b), however, were BOTH far greater incentives for political opposition to Clinton and easily politically demonized, but both were important to do, should have been done, and if there were bad political consequences, so be it.
I know from my personal listening to the opposition hate radio that it really was the tax hike that was the gift they took from Clinton's policies that kept giving. The gays in the military thing is a lingering wound among otherwise likely Democrat supporting gays, who thought Clinton should have gone the last measure, gone down in flames as his own party rebuked him as the first thing that happened in his presidency.
Same thing with your claim that 'the Democrats' (TM?) brought up the gay marriage thing. WHICH Democrats? The national party? Recognized national leaders of the party? Hardly. A mayor here or there, or the leg in Mass. It was the GOP that brought it up nationally, ginning up referenda and other responses in states for which it wasn't even a live issue at that point.
I guess it all depends on what IS is.
It is unlikely that the country was somehow readier under Truman for integration of the races in the armed forces than a scant couple of years earlier during FDR's terms.
Brown v. Board of Education was still years off in '54, as was Eisenhower's action pursuant to the US v. Topeka Board of Education decision.
Was Truman committing political suicide for himself of his party by doing the right thing? Doesn't seem likely, as these were not the issues that drove him from seeking re-election with his 30% range popular ratings-- those were the 3 'Cs': communism, corruption, and [K]orea [sic].
Or perhaps LBJ shouldn't have pushed through the Civil Rights Act, which indeed he said might cost the Democratic Party the south for several generations (and with the Nixon southern strategy, sorta did so).
I think both Truman and LBJ did the right thing, whatever the outcomes politically. And that was what Clinton originally tried in his first proposal, to integrate gays into the military by his own executive order. It was his own party's intransigence that created the bad compromise that nobody likes now.
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