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I received an email from Brian Hughes, a former sergeant in the Army Rangers, who wrote an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal the other day, ”Gays Have Served Honorably in the War on Terror,” calling for the repeal of DADT. He said that he was moved to write it after reading a post and comments in a thread on the topic that I cross-posted to Pandagon.
A veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hughes was awarded the Commendation Medal twice for his service, and the fact that he was gay—and out to some of his platoon mates—didn’t matter. And being in close quarters didn’t matter either.
As a candidate, Barack Obama spoke out strongly against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the Armed Forces. He promised a full repeal of the ban if he was elected. But President Obama seems to be backing down from this pledge. The White House now hedges on the issue, saying it supports changing the policy “in a sensible way.”
What’s clear to me, a gay man who served for four years in the military, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the most sensible change would be a full repeal.
I was a line infantryman in the Army’s Ranger regiment from 2000-04, earning a promotion to sergeant within three years. In that time, my platoon performed dozens of combat missions on the front lines. Our lives depended on complete mutual trust.
Several of my colleagues knew I was gay. We lived in the closest possible conditions. When there were showers, we showered together. When we were out overnight on the cold, bare mountains of Afghanistan, we slept huddled together for warmth. It should go without saying that there was nothing remotely sexual about these situations. We had uncomfortable experiences—we were at war, after all—but my buddies were never uncomfortable with me.
Elaine Donnelly, are you listening? His colleagues had nothing to fear, but Hughes did...
The reason I didn’t come out to more of my comrades wasn’t out of concern for morale. I was worried about losing my job.
Since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” came into effect, some 13,000 service members have been fired for being gay. Thousands more decided against pursuing a full career in the military and let their contracts expire. Replacements can be recruited and trained—at a cost of more than $36 million per year—but each individual’s institutional knowledge is lost, to the detriment of the unit and the mission.
Today the strongest resistance to overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” may not come from the military, which polls show mostly supports repeal, nor from social conservatives, who are not in power. Rather, there are many Democratic leaders and strategists who blame the issue of gays in the military for damaging the beginning of Bill Clinton’s presidency. They fear it could have the same effect on Mr. Obama.
There you have it—the fear is the Political Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PPTSD) of the advisors who lived through the missteps and caving during Clinton’s first term. The problem with this fossilized thinking is that the world has changed, people. The polls favor repeal; those currently serving support it. About the only group that is currently cited over and over in favor of retaining this policy are some long-retired service members and the “representatives” of this position like the shrill, catastrophic doyenne of discrimination, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, who did her cause no service by making asinine statements on the Hill during her laughable testimony last year.
Read some of the ludicrous things she said after the jump.
We’re talking about real consequences for real people,” Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about “inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community,” the prospects of “forcible sodomy” and “exotic forms of sexual expression,” and the case of “a group of black lesbians who decided to gang-assault” a fellow soldier.
At the witness table with Donnelly, retired Navy Capt. Joan Darrah, a lesbian, rolled her eyes in disbelief. Retired Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, a gay man who was wounded in Iraq, looked as if he would explode.
.."Like a woman who is stared at, her breasts are stared at,” Donnelly explained. She further explained the “absolutely devastating” effect of homosexuals “introducing erotic factors” and made a comparison to Sen. Larry Craig’s adventure at the Minneapolis airport. She said admitting gays to the military would be “forced cohabitation” and a policy of “relax and enjoy it.”
Another explanation for the resistance to lifting the ban comes from Michael Hastings of The Hasting Report. His reasoning (though he doesn’t support DADT)? That the military won’t be able to joke about the homos any more.
In this kind of atmosphere, you find the type of language that you get when you isolate a bunch of dudes in testerone scented quarters. Jokingly, I’ve seen soldiers sit on each others laps, pretend to blow kisses and then some, while continually make sexually suggestive comments to one another. On one embed, the soldiers showed me a video of another solider touching the penis of a donkey. (I won’t name the unit, but it could have been a bad YouTube hit.)
The humor is not meant as malicious, I don’t think, and these are on the whole good guys. It’s just what gets joked about. Call it barracks humor, or call it an homoerotic environment.
...But on some level, the resistance to letting homosexuals in has nothing to do with morale. It has to do with maintaining the macho ideal, a desire to maintain some kind of imagined tradition. A place where men can still be men. And making jokes about gays is part of that. (I’m not condoning the homophobic atmosphere. As I mentioned, I think it’s an unjust prejudice for the military to hold onto. These are just things I’ve observed.)
Military officials probably won’t ever say it like this, but it’s also one of the last politically incorrect things those in uniform can joke about freely. Women, Blacks, Hispanics, Arabs–not cool, off limits, have to be careful about that! Gay jokes, though, are a dime a dozen; they almost always get a laugh.
Wow. Just. Wow. Does it occur to him that the lesbians and gays serving in silence have to listen to the sh*t? It’s not as if they aren’t there—the policy is about booting them out, they are already there. That crap doesn’t fly.
Hughes, who obviously was also there and can speak to the situation, says the military is more than ready to lift the ban.
Straight and gay soldiers have been fighting side by side in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond without incident. More than 20 of our closest allies have integrated gays into their ranks, including all of NATO except Turkey. American troops work and live with these forces without incident.
Here at home, every government service is integrated, including the paramilitary sections of the CIA that work hand in glove with the armed services. The presence of gays in these organizations is a nonissue. The idea that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines would have any greater difficulty adjusting is an insult to their professionalism.
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Posted by
Pam Spaulding on 12:52 PM •
Permalink
Brian stopped by the Blend, and I asked him for his reaction to the statements by Michael Hastings re: gay jokes and the culture of the military. He said:
It’s sort of the situation described in South Park: the boys pick on Token for being rich, and Cartman for being fat, and Kyle for being jewish, and Cartman for being stupid, and Stan for having a girlfriend, and Cartman for ... etc.
Groups of men bond by teasing each other. If I had been completely out in a fully integrated service, I’m sure I would have been teased - in a good-natured way - for being gay, just as in real life I took it in the neck for a dozen other personal quirks. But I would still have had the respect of my superiors, peers and subordinates, provided I was good at my job.
As for Michael Hastings:
1) He completely ignores women in the service, of course.
2) The troops he observed were clearly on their best behavior around him. Where did he get the idea that women, blacks, Hispanics and Arabs were off-limits?
3) He is totally off base when he calls the military culture of all-male units homophobic. It is homosocial, which can involve homophobia but is more complex, and more malleable.
4) His weak disclaimers, amplified in his comments section, indicate that he thinks repealing DADT is a fairness issue. I don’t buy that. It is a national security issue. We shouldn’t really care whether the military will be more or less fair. All things being equal, that would be nice. But what matters is that the military will be stronger with open gays and lesbians in the ranks. We know it will, because we know that over 90% of people under 30 don’t give a damn about sexual orientation.
Who cares what the right wing says about this? It’s not the right wing in power. It’s time to direct your fire where it belongs: on the Democrats who control the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. I don’t care what Elaine Donnelly says. Elaine Donnelly is immaterial. The people with the power - Obama chief among them - are the ones you should be criticizing. Why is there such manifest reluctance to do so?
Elaine Donnelly is a) never going to change her mind and be on our side and b) not the one in charge of military policy. In contrast Obama a) says he’s on our side and b) is the one in charge of military policy. Stop acting like irrelevant internet pundits who spend all their time being high and mighty against people who disagree with you and will always disagree with you. This railing is tired, it’s old, and it’s useless. Act like a political activist and pressure the guy who matters—stop giving him a free pass for his failure to act.
Thanks Pam. Again, I’d like to point out that though I worked under the oppressive cloud of DADT, I completed my enlistment without being outed. Unlike so many others, I was relatively lucky.
My husband and I are preparing for the holiday weekend, but I will try to stop by again later this afternoon.
Here’s what kills me: They still have the DADT, but the military has looked the other way as recruiters bring in, against the rules, white supremacists and members of other hate groups. If having gays runs off a few guys who have severe masculinity issues, we’re all safer for it. That means fewer rapists, fewer white supremacists, fewer men who give the military a bad name.
I’m no expert, but based on what rubs off on me from the Marine side of the family, my theory is that allowing gays in is problematic for the military’s misogynistic dom/submissive form of discipline.
My FIL was a Marine drill sargent, and it seems that his main way to keep soldiers in line was through shaming via comparing them to women or gays. They would actually punish soldiers by feigning anal rape and that sort of thing, and humiliation was a tactic that used anything effeminate as its tool. These stories were told to me with great jocularity and humor.
I think they are afraid of gays ruining the hierarchical structure and their stupid ways of discipline. It’s not that gays are the problem, its that they might have to redefine how they train soldiers and give a little thought to other, more humane and more effective means to train them. God forbid your buddy next to you is a cool gay guy. It sort of puts the punch out of calling someone gay and having it be an insult.
Gee? If they can’t fake gay rape them into submission...why don’t they just waterboard them? Its not like that’s torture or anything, right?
Re: Amanda’s comment: I hadn’t thought of that before, but it’s a really, really, really good point. I’ve often heard it trotted out that allowing gays in the military could hurt recruitment, but you’re absolutely right: the people who would be put off by it are exactly the ones we as a society should not want to provide with guns and training in how to use them.
Several of my colleagues knew I was gay. We lived in the closest possible conditions. When there were showers, we showered together. When we were out overnight on the cold, bare mountains of Afghanistan, we slept huddled together for warmth. It should go without saying that there was nothing remotely sexual about these situations. We had uncomfortable experiences—we were at war, after all—but my buddies were never uncomfortable with me.
“Elaine Donnelly, are you listening?”
I’m sure she is, and I’m sure her response will be something along the lines of “Those poor, poor straight soldiers had to shower and sleep with a gay man. See, that’s why we have to go back to open discrimination against homosexuals - to save our glorious straight boys the ignominy.”
I’ve often heard it trotted out that allowing gays in the military could hurt recruitment, but you’re absolutely right: the people who would be put off by it are exactly the ones we as a society should not want to provide with guns and training in how to use them.
And maybe their numbers would be more than made up for by gay people more willing to join the military knowing that there won’t be people trying to harass them out of service from day one.
But I guess if someone’s managed to swallow the talking point that more people eligible to serve in the military = fewer people serving in the military, they’re not going to be convinced by simple logic on this point.
there are many Democratic leaders and strategists who blame the issue of gays in the military for damaging the beginning of Bill Clinton’s presidency. They fear it could have the same effect on Mr. Obama.
This is my fear. For everyone who claims Obama and Rahm and Axelrod have some long-game chess move plan...my fear is that they are just craven politicians. They weigh the risk of repealing discriminatory policies vs. re-election chances.
Cause who else will we vote for? The GOP?
They have power now. They need to use it now. The GOP will always always whine and scream about anything we do, so we might as well do something, now that we have the power, instead of wimping out and letting the GOP set the agenda.
the 2010 midterms are incredibly important. We need to work just as hard as during W’s reign and fight for progressive candidates in the primaries. We can’t afford to let Arlen Specter keep his seat, or anyone of a Blue Dog or centrist point of view.
If Obama has a Congress with Feingolds and Kuciniches and Wexlers demanding he move forward with a progressive agenda, he won’t be able to cower.
The more he fails to follow his promises, the weaker he becomes and the more the GOP says “See, we were right. Even Obama is doing things our way now.”
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Brian Hughes, thank you for your service.
Okay, the question is, does the below amount to movement on DADT, or more lip service:
“Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, who earlier in the week said that DOD wasn’t doing anything at all with regards to the President’s promise to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), yesterday reversed course:
“President Obama has been clear in his direction to Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen that he is committed to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy. He has also been clear that he is committed to do it in a way that is least disruptive to our troops, especially given that they have been simultaneously waging two wars for six years now. Although this will require changes to the law, the Secretary and Chairman are working to address the challenges associated with implementation of the President’s commitment.”
http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/dod-relents-on-dadt.html#disqus_thread
California representative Howard Berman predicted in an interview Thursday that the White House would be presenting new information regarding LGBT policies sometime before annual pride celebrations in June.
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid85221.asp
Openly Gay Amb. Who Resigned Under Bush: State Dept. May Establish Same-Sex Benefits Within Weeks
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/21/guest-berman/
It’s lip service. Obama could, right now, tell the military NOT to enforce Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It doesn’t require any changes to the law. He could do it. He won’t. And so long as we’re preoccupied with railing against Elaine Donnelly, instead of bringing pressure on Obama, he never will.
I’m with Rev. Dr. King: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Elphie:
I’m with Rev. Dr. King: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
I’m sorry, Elphie, but even Dr. King would think you’re a babbling idiot.
You’re not going to shame any of us by railing against our apparently superhuman ability to hold more than one idea in our minds at the same time, so stop assuming that everyone else is as intellectually limited as you are.
See, your problem is that you yourself are exactly what you’re complaining about. Mocking Elaine Donnelly is at least marginally constructive insofar as it’s a rhetorical response. But I’d really like to know what actual political activities you’ve performed that give you the right to be so holier-than-thou. Clearly, it’s never occurred to you that it’s perfectly possible for someone to simultaneously mock Elaine Donnelly for being a douchebag and to engage in more constructive activities, or you wouldn’t be coming here and throwing spittle-flecked temper-tantrums at people who do more political work in a week than you’ll do in your entire life.
DADT has always been a stupid, sensless, craven policy. President Clinton instituted it to try to burnish his credentials as commander-in-chief, that even though he didn’t serve in the military he was willing to take the advice of his generals, and they were telling him all this bullshit about “unit cohesion” and morale. Clinton caved in order to not look like a DFH, and we’ve been paying for that decision ever since. President Obama also never served in the military, and he also wants to look like a shrewd commander-in-chief who takes the advice of his military experts, and so here we are again.
When is the President going to stand up and actually fight for the principles we elected him to fight for, rather than just making all these pretty speeches and doing nothing? Is this what community organizers do, make speeches and wait for things to happen? With all due respect to FDR, it should not be up to the people to “make” the President do anything; he should simply go out and do it, without our prompting. That’s called “leadership.” The only time the people should need to “make” the President do anything is if it’s something he truly doesn’t want to do. And if that’s what we’ve done, if we’ve supported and campaigned for and elected someone who doesn’t truly believe in and support those policies and principles we elected him to promote and uphold, then we’ve made a mistake.
Why the hate on Elphie? As far as I can see, she made a perfectly legitimate argument. Or is there some threshold of activism required before she is allowed to speak?
The White House might be revealing new LGBT policies before Pride in June?
If this is true, you have to admire Obama’s sense of timing.
(Also would be swell timing and seeming in response, if California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8.)
Would also cut back on negative press about Obama foot-dragging during Pride (when LGBT will get media space ‘cause of Pride.)
I think it would be better in the long term for both the military and the Democratic Party if DADT is ended by Congress, not by Executive Order or, worse, by the courts.
The thing is that Congress won’t act except on direction from the White House, which won’t act without direction from the Pentagon, which won’t act without direction from the White House. Ultimately, the buck stops with Obama and he needs to feel the heat.
judybrowni: As best I can tell, the phrase “least disruptive to our troops, especially given that they have been simultaneously waging two wars for six years now” is spokesman-speak for “stop bothering me with Teh Gay. We have Important Serious Work™ to do.” In other words, the whole performance was lip-service.
We can’t afford to let Arlen Specter keep his seat, or anyone of a Blue Dog or centrist point of view.
You have no idea how much I agree with this statement, but sadly I don’t think we’ve got much of a shot in hell in unseating Specter. He’s polling more than 40 points ahead of Sestak (who isn’t even that progressive) and Sestak is the only other Democrat on the radar.
As much as I love what Howard Dean was able to do for the Democratic Party in the two election cycles in which he was running the show, I think in reality we didn’t win as much as we like to believe. There are currently 59 “Democratic” senators (should be 60), but several of them are hardly progressive. But in truth, they were the best we could do in the territories in which they won (Webb and Tester come to mind) their elections. We have become a huge tent party, but not an especially progressive party - that’s the end result of the 50 state strategy.
I’m pretty torn on the matter. I can say today that regardless of how much Obama frustrates me on this and many other issues, my vote for him in 2012 is virtually guaranteed. Why? Because regardless of how short he falls of my ideal on progressive issues, I know that he will be better than thge alternative. Sadly, I worry about my vote for him in 2012 being similar to my vote for John Kerry in 2004 - the choice of the lesser of two evils.
President Obama, my vote for you is secure in 2012. But any support beyond my vote - such as financial contribution or campaign volunteer activity - is entirely contingent on how you address the issues that your most fervent supporters sent you to the White House to address. If you continue to punt on DADT and other issues that matter to the progressive community, you can count me out of any volunteer assistance in your 2012 campaign. I’ll still vote for you that year… but that’s about it.
liberalrob:
Why the hate on Elphie? As far as I can see, she made a perfectly legitimate argument. Or is there some threshold of activism required before she is allowed to speak?
No, there is no threshold of activism. There is, however, a threshold of telling the truth and not being a self-righteous fuckstick, which Elphie is demonstrably not meeting. The belief that no one is pressuring the president to fulfill their personal agenda betrays a startling naivety and ignorance regarding politics, because that’s how politics works.
Seriously, anyone who honestly believes that no one around here is doing real-world advocacy — that we’re all just wanking off in our parents’ basements like the 101st Fighting Keyboardists — is too stupid to breathe properly, let alone read.
Hey Dan,
You know what they say: throw a rock over the fence and the dog who yelps is the one who got hit.
Cheers!
“When is the President going to stand up and actually fight for the principles we elected him to fight for, rather than just making all these pretty speeches and doing nothing?”
“The thing is that Congress won’t act except on direction from the White House, which won’t act without direction from the Pentagon, which won’t act without direction from the White House. Ultimately, the buck stops with Obama and he needs to feel the heat.”
I agree with both of these statements wholeheartedly. The guy in charge needs to feel the pressure. And we’re the ones who need to bring it. If we’re going to be activist, activate in the right direction, i.e. toward the ones in power.
Elphie:
You know what they say: throw a rock over the fence and the dog who yelps is the one who got hit.
Thank you for proving my point for me.
If you have to lie to get your point across, you don’t have a point. QED.
We had uncomfortable experiences—we were at war, after all—but my buddies were never uncomfortable with me.
Well, they may or may not have been uncomfortable on the inside ... but what they were is PROFESSIONAL about the situation and handled their own issues by themselves. Like military professionals are supposed to be.
You go Brian! You go!
This debate over what sort of pressure we should be putting on President Obama comes back to one frustrating question…
What do we do if he doesn’t respond?
Caren pointed out the pink elephant before - whether Obama acts or not, it isn’t as if he has to worry abbout losing our votes in 2012. It isn’t as if we’re all gonna go and vote for whoever the GOP puts up against him. And the odds of him getting a primary opponent are slim to none in historical perspective. The last incumbent POTUS who faced a real threat of losing his party’s nomination was LBJ, who recognized the threat was so powerful that he opted not to run. Sure Ted Kennedy tried to oust Carterin 1980, but he got absolutely noweher in that effort, other than to help make Carter an even weaker candidate in the general, where he got trounced by Reagan in a landslide. Only once in American history has an incumbent president ever lost a primary in his re-election to a candidate who went on to win in the general election that year - Franklin Pierce was defeated in 1856 by James Buchanan for the Democratic nomination, and Buchanan went on to win the election (and become the worst president POTUS in U.S. history, yes even worse than Dubya).
Obama is our guy in 2012. Whether he behaves in a progressive manner in his first term or not is likely irrelevant when it comes to the progressive electorate, because it isn’t as if we’re all gonna go vote for the Republican in 2012. And while we could go vote for a Green or Nader, I think we all realize the consequences of that sort of choice (see Florida, 2000, where Nader won 78,000 votes, and Gore “lost” by fewer than 500 votes).
So what do we do? How do we really put pressure on Obama to do the right thing? And what if he doesn’t? Then what?
Seriously? Well, ok, then. I guess you told me.
Sorry—this:
“Seriously? Well, ok, then. I guess you told me.”
was to respond to Dan.
Now, to respond to this:
This question:
“So what do we do? How do we really put pressure on Obama to do the right thing? And what if he doesn’t? Then what?”
means, IMO, that this: “Obama is our guy in 2012” simply can’t be one’s mindset or default position. How did the christian conservatives capture the Republican Party? By forming a voting bloc and making clear that they would not support somebody who didn’t adopt their agenda regardless of short term losses.
But, if that doesn’t work for you, and I understand it might not, the only answer I can see is work your way through Congress. Primary Dem candidates. Don’t let anybody get fat and happy thinking they’re going to retain their seat simple because they’re a Dem running in a Dem state. Start with freaking Arlen Specter. I get it, Sestak is 40 points behind. It’s a tough hill to climb. And it might not work. (See Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman.) But I do think it’s the only way. Take your money and activism away from Obama for the present and give it to somebody else. Send a shot across his bow right now, before 2012, and get his attention.
That’s all I can think of. I’m open to more suggestions. (Except for what I’ve already advocated here: forget the opposition, focus Obama.)
Elphie, if you actually had something worthwhile to contribute, I presume you’d have done it already. And if we are to accept your argument that commenting here necessarily precludes real-world activism, we’re left to assume that you are doing none yourself. Which makes you a hypocrite.
Also, DTG raises a good point. Political pressure is only as effective as the agreement of the people you’re trying to persuade. I’m afraid we’re going to have to set aside the claim that no activism is being done as patently false on its face, so the only conclusion left is that Obama isn’t listening to us. That’s an entirely different problem.
Hey Dan,
Relax. I am safely put in my place. Okay?
Who the fuck cares what Elaine Donnelly says? She is not a student of warfare, lacks any knowledge of tactics, is not a good or adequate strategist, has no knowledge of the arts of arms, and has in fact never served.
But aside from that, she’s the very model of a modern Republican military expert.
If we’re going to be activist, activate in the right direction, i.e. toward the ones in power.
Corporate lobbyists?
Wow, Dan, there is really no need for the vitriol. Maybe Elphie was a little harsh in criticism of who this post and the commenters are lambasting, but you’re the one writing insulting and defensive attacks.
“Corporate lobbyists?”
Sure. Why not? And the corporations that employ them.
“So what do we do? How do we really put pressure on Obama to do the right thing? And what if he doesn’t? Then what?”
means, IMO, that this: “Obama is our guy in 2012” simply can’t be one’s mindset or default position. How did the christian conservatives capture the Republican Party? By forming a voting bloc and making clear that they would not support somebody who didn’t adopt their agenda regardless of short term losses.
I guess this all depends on whether or not one considers the presidency a “short-term loss”.
Incumbent presidents don’t get primaries. When they do, they lose (see Carter, Jimmy in 1980). When the threat of a primary is so strong that they opt not to run for a second term, the person that replaces them loses (see Humphrey, Hubert in 1968).
In 2012, either Barack Obama will get re-elected to a second term, or a Republican will become president. That’s reality. And while President Obama may frustrate us on progressive issues, I consider the possibility of a Republican becoming POTUS in 2012 asa huge step backwards for the progressive movement, regardless of who the Republican is (given the GOP’s desire to move sharply to the right, I cannot fathom them nominating someone even remotely progressive, or even moderate for that matter - the 2012 GOP nominee is gonna make John McCain look like a flaming liberal by comparison).
The Supreme Court of the United States is generally viewed to be ideologically balanced at the present time (I would argue slightly conservative), with 4 considered to be liberal justices (Souter, Stevens, Ginsberg, and Breyer), 4 considered conservative (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts), and one semi-swing vote (Kennedy).
Barring Scalia dying unexpectedly, there is no chance for Obama to shift SCOTUS in a progressive direction in his first term, only to maintain the current balance. It is unlikely he’ll even be able to do so in his second term (Scalia being the only possible conservative to leave the court, and only if he dies).
That said, Stevens and Ginsberg won’t be around forever, and it is questionable whether or not they’ll be around beyond 2016. But it isn’t clear that either of them will depart before the 2012 election.
Should both of them stay on the court through 2012, it becomes virtually imperative that the president from January 2013 through January 2017 is a Democrat, the only viable choice being Obama. Because should one of them retire or die during the reign of a GOP president, the long-term consequences could be disasterous for progressives. And this wouldn’t just be a “short-term loss”. Even though Obama is about to replace an older member of SCOTUS who is generally on our side, he isn’t gonnna be dramatically shifting the balance of the court with this nominee. We will have gained something by having a younger (hopefully) progressive justice, but it will be years, perhaps decades, before progressives will really have an opportunity to change the ideological balance of the court. And the next decade is critical to maintaining the current balance. Given the opportunity to name justices in the next decade, the GOP could dramtically shift the court to the right; the best hope for us in the near future is to keep the status quo and bring some youth to our side.
As such, sacrificing the White House for a more progressive party in 2012 just ain’t an option for me in 2012. The potential cost makes the risk way too high.
DTG -
Barring some huge, unforeseen event, Obama won’t be primaried for 2012. So, I agree with you and the hope for Obama to be primaried by a “more progessive” candidate isn’t a hope of mine and I’m not advocating a strategy to bring that about.
I think Obama’s appointment to replace Souter will be very telling, if not decisive, re: his dedication to moving the SCt leftward. At this point, I have no faith that he is, in fact, dedicated to that. However, I’m willing to change my perspective on that depending on what happens with Souter. So, I’m not getting on board with you quite yet re: Democratic Presidents are vital to having a balanced or liberal SCt. We don’t know what Obama will do, it’s very much wait and see.
OTOH, I think a Democratic President who, with a Democratic Congress, consolidates the gains of the Imperial Presidency, puts Social Security on the table, and takes single-payer off the table, is much more dangerous than a Republican President who may try to do the same things with a Democratic Congress. For example, Bush’s attempt at Social Security reform was derailed. Can we trust the same will happen to a Democratic President? I fear not.
Granted, the Social Security and health care issues are not yet resolved nor are the Imperial Presidency issues, entirely. Yet, enough steps have been taken by Obama to retain the power Bush arrogated to the Presidency that I am sincerely concerned about the remainder. As such, I think that at this point there is a legitimate concern that a Democratic President is more dangerous to liberal principals than a Republican President who might find him/herself dealing with gridlock and/or pushback on these efforts.
Maybe not. Maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe it will all turn out ok, on Social Security, the War on Terror, health care, the give to Wall Street, etc. Hopefully, Obama will prove me all wrong. That would be great.
Bottom line for me: IMO putting your support elsewhere for 2010 as a message to Obama and the Dems can hardly endanger the White House in 2012. YMMV.
Seriously, anyone who honestly believes that no one around here is doing real-world advocacy — that we’re all just wanking off in our parents’ basements like the 101st Fighting Keyboardists — is too stupid to breathe properly, let alone read.
I don’t think anyone has said that no one is doing real-world advocacy. I think the argument was that we should make doubly sure that the advocacy is being aimed at the appropriate target. It is pointless to protest to people like Elaine Donnelly because they’re never going to change their minds. Instead you should protest to the same people the Elaine Donnellys are lobbying: the actual decision-makers, and ultimately the President. (Elphie, in order to do that, we must first point out what a loon Elaine Donnelly is. Discrediting the know-nothings and debunking superstitious claptrap is part of advocacy.)
Don’t mistake criticism of the President for criticism of you.
In 2012, either Barack Obama will get re-elected to a second term, or a Republican will become president. That’s reality.
No it isn’t, it’s just your theory. I also have a theory. My theory, which is mine, is that there is no way a Republican of any stripe can become President in 2012 because they are a regional party of the Old Confederacy and demographics are against them. In a twisted way, the anti-immigration xenophobes are right: immigration, legal and illegal, is changing the country. Since the Republican Party is the party of xenophobes, they are going to lose for the foreseeable future.
If President Obama spends the next three and a half years hemming and hawing and triangulating, he should be primaried. This is a center-left country and he should be held to account to the extent that he does not promote the values we believe in. We should not be afraid of the examples of Humphrey, who lost because was saddled with an unpopular war and faced the lying promises of Republicans, or Jimmy Carter, who lost not because of Kennedy’s challenge but because of his own vacillation on Iran and the lying promises of Republicans.
If President Obama spends the next three and a half years hemming and hawing and triangulating, he should be primaried.
My theory is grounded in 220 years of presidential election reality.
We have held 56 presidential elections in American history. Only once in our entire national history has an incumbent president been primaried by a challenger who then went on to win the presidency - Franklin Pierce was primaried out of the Democratic nomination by James Buchanan in 1856, and Buchanan went on to become president. It should be noted that Buchanan is widely regarded as the worst president in American history, the man responsible for letting the conditions which led us into the Civil War to foment for 4 years while he did nothing.
Incumbent presidents DO NOT GET PRIMARIED. It has never happened in your lifetime with a successful outcome, and it will not happen in 2012, either. If a strong, nationally-known Democrat were to actually present Obama with a primary challenge in 2012, you can kiss the election goodbye. Jimmyt Carter got primaried by Ted Kennedy in 1980, and then went on to lose in one of the biggest landslides in American history. Things got so bad for LBJ in 1968 that he didn’t run, and Humphrey got trounced by Richard fucking Nixon.
If the Democratic Party is in such a disarray that there is any serious mention of a primary threat to President Obama in 2012, we are in deep shit. Fortunately, there is no serious talk of it outside the realm of the totally irrelevant Hillaryis44.org and Larry Johnson’s racist NoQuarter, so I’m none to concerned about it.
Barring unforespeakable tragedy, President Obama will be the Democratic Nominee for POTUS in 2012. It’s ridiculous to consider any other possibility given 220 years that back it up.
Nixon lied and said he’d end the Vietnam war, and was elected.
The lesson Democrats should have learned: don’t give your base and the American people what they fervently want and need, and a lying Republican will take advantage of your electorate.
Some Republican candidates will get smart and lie enough to capture enough moderates, and bye-bye Democratic majorities, if the Democrats don’t smarten up.
We’re talking about real consequences for real people,” Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about “inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community,” the prospects of “forcible sodomy” and “exotic forms of sexual expression,”
Excuse me, but what about the very real rape problem going on right NOW in our military? Maybe the contingent of soldiers who are of gung-ho macho uber-testosterony fuckwads could use a little insecurity. MAYBE if they thought it could happen to them they’d be less likely to rape the private next to them. MAYBE.
judybrowni: Nixon did end the Vietnam war. It just took four years and God knows how many unnecessary deaths. And people wonder why they used to compare him to a used-car salesman.
How soon we forget: Johnson refused to end the Vietnam war, spent the captital of his New Society on that senseless war. I was but one of the thousands who marched on Washington to be told that Johnson wasn’t even paying attention to the protests.
In the 1968 Presidential campaign “With regards to the Vietnam War, he [Nixon} promised peace with honor, and campaigned on the notion that “new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon
During the 1972 re-election campaign, Nixon was harassed by war protestors at every campaign stop—enough so that CREEP tried to arrange one in which no protestors would be able to make an appearance: during the dedication of the then new Museum of Immigration on Statue of Liberty Island, where they could control who got on the boats to the Island that day, closed to tourists.
But I happened to be working for the National Park Service in New York at the time, smuggled invitations out to the Vietnam Veteran’s against the War, and watched Nixon closely when I heard the chanting start “Stop the bombing, stop the war. Nixon out!”
Nixon’s jaw dropped and he looked furious. He’d lied and promised to stop the war, but hadn’t, and didn’t want to pay the price of even being criticized.
Nixon had the wind at his back as an incumbent, but Watergate was just one indication of the dirty tricks he still felt need of to win, although at that point he felt free to libel the Democratic platform “as cowardly and divisive.”
“George McGovern, Nixon’s former opponent, commented in 1983, “With the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon
I’m late to this, I see, but let me address Elphie:
The people with the power - Obama chief among them - are the ones you should be criticizing. Why is there such manifest reluctance to do so?
I was initially going to agree with you. There are indeed far too many on the left who will defend anything Obama does. “Give him time” has become the new “We have to keep our powder dry.” These unreflective people are often only Democrats by accident of birth; if they’d been born into conservative families and communities, they’d be Republicans. They don’t realize their job as citizens is to follow their elected officials and communicate with them when they, the citizens, believe the officials are on the wrong path.
However, Pam and many other people here, on the Blend, and elsewhere have indeed criticized Obama for his failures to empathize with and protect the GLBT community, going back at least to the Donnie McClurkin incident during the campaign. And many people on this community are no strangers to real-world activism. I agree with Dan that you’re painting with a broad brush and you’re implying that criticizing Donnelly vs. Obama is a simple binary choice.
We have become a huge tent party, but not an especially progressive party - that’s the end result of the 50 state strategy.
Nothing to do with the 50 state strategy. It has to do with the structure of the Senate. A liberal majority in the Senate is virtually impossible.
We have become a huge tent party, but not an especially progressive party - that’s the end result of the 50 state strategy.
Nothing to do with the 50 state strategy. It has to do with the structure of the Senate. A liberal majority in the Senate is virtually impossible.
I beg to differ. Howard Dean had a keen awareness that what would sell in Massachusetts might not sell in Montana, and as such, the DNC actively promoted the most electable candidates it could find depending on the seat they were running for. There was no “one size fits all” approach to the ideal candidate in the past two cycles. Someone like Ted Kennedy is never gonna get elected in a rural traditional red state, so candidates like him weren’t promoted in areas where they couldn’t win. We added a lot of seats in 2006 precisely because we went with less progressive candidates like Jon Tester and Jim Webb in Montana and Virginia, because we knew that those were the exact types of candidates that could win in their red-leaning states. Had the DNC promoted traditional New England liberals in those races, they would have lost to the Republicans.
We gained a majority and expanded it in the past two election cycles precisely by making our tent larger, allowing the party to become less ideologically liberal in the process. The Democrats are still the left of center party overall, but a lot of emphasis now lies in the “center” part of left of center. Our caucuses now represent both the liberal segment of the country and the moderate segment of the country. The upshot is that we now have huge majorities in Congress. The downside is that we also have a bunch of conservadems in our ranks.
Barring unforespeakable tragedy, President Obama will be the Democratic Nominee for POTUS in 2012.
The problem is that the threshold of what is considered a tragedy (did you mean unspeakable or unforeseeable?) seems to be getting higher and higher. This development was not started by Obama, but he is not doing much at all to counter it, so I think the frustration of Elphie and others is understandable.
Does Obama sound like he’s describing a horrible tragedy here:
“There was a period of time after 9/11, understandably because people were fearful, where I think we cut too many corners and made some decisions that were contrary to who we are as a people,”
or does that sound more like “mistakes were made”?
Is this an indication that Obama is heading towards some tragedies of his own or is it just “cutting corners”? And could someone explain to a dumb foreigner, how the US can be promoting democracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and at the same time ignore local opposition to air strikes that cill civilians?
And could someone explain to a dumb foreigner, how the US can be promoting democracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and at the same time ignore local opposition to air strikes that cill civilians?
windy on 05/23 at 10:05 PM
Um, the same way we were “promoting democracy” in Vietnam?
Um, the same way we were “promoting democracy” in Vietnam?
Right, I forgot the scare quotes…
Back to the issue…
Lexie, you’re an idiot. First, there’s no such thing as drill sergeants in the Marine Corps. They’re drill instructors. Sorry, that just irks me when people say that. Second, Marines aren’t soldiers. That really grinds my gears. Third, learn to spell. If you actually experienced a Marine, you would see that the vast majority of us aren’t afraid of gays or being around them at all. You’re judging all Marines because one homophopic DI prick. Nice job.
Alright, gays in the military. I personally don’t have a problem with it. If a gay man or woman wants to serve their country, fine by me. Patriotism does rock! However, I’d say the overwhelming majority of military personnel is against gays in the military, unfortunately. A lot of the military is Republican, so yeah. And I’d say a small percentage of that majority would actually commit some kind of violent crime against an openly gay person in their unit. Sad but true.
I’d like to also point out something I’ve observed here on pandagon. I’ve noticed nearly all posts here portray a negative light on the military and people serving. I’ve come across posters who’ve generalized that the military is just full of sexist, racist, homophobic, rapists. Nice job dudes. Hope you enjoyed your fucking burgers and BBQ on Memorial Day.
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Brian stopped by the Blend, and I asked him for his reaction to the statements by Michael Hastings re: gay jokes and the culture of the military. He said: