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Example 3,623 of fierce advocacy from the White House can be seen in today's National Journal's “Need to Know” column (scroll down, front page):
DON’T ASK. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told National Journal that repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military is “at least worth a shot” in the lame-duck session of Congress that starts next week. But lawmakers would have to hang around longer than some might like: The military’s study on the proposed repeal isn’t due till December 1.
Wow. Can you just feel the fierce advocacy?
The GOP is going to be attacking this vote with non-stop stories of all the enormous consequences of soldiers being raped in the shower rooms and how the gays will spread AIDS through the troops and how they will prey on straights during all those “intimate” nights of “sleeping alongside of one another.” (Oh wait, “our side” gave them most of those talking points…)
Anyway, nothing says resolve and sure-footed commitment to doing the right thing like declaring it is “at least worth a shot.” That's the way you go into a fight demonstrating your a winning spirit and a take-no-prisoners attitude!
Is that what they will tell us on the 2012 campaign trail when we asked why nothing got passed? “Hey, we gave it a shot!”
H/T to GayAmericaBlog.
18 Comments
Oh Hell! Give me the shot!I know it’s a million to one chance but I’ve faced worse.
Put me in their… Let me do what I’m good at…
That is teaspoon right Clark?I am sure they will at least have Joe S in for tea and explain it to him. Not Aubrey or Dan or Alex though.PS. Senator Reid (or his office, anyway tweet tag is SenatorReid) tweeted this AM.”I stand by commitment to repeal DADT.” Wonder if he will be invited to tea too?
LameThat about says it all.
There is no spoonOnly the hope that change will come.
Hey, we gave it a shot, orHey, we thought about it, kinda, or
Hey, we really wanted to, but we just never got around to it, or
Hey, we knew there was something we forgot to do, or
No we can’t.
We probably ought to consider ourselves luckythat they didn’t commission a study to see whether it’s “at least worth a shot.”
ENDA?Just reminding people.
Two years ago, there were expectations, reasonable ones, that DADT and DOMA would go, and ENDA happen, one of them possibly in the first 6 months.
And now? We’ve had less progress than under the Bush administration. Their fights in the courts weren’t nearly as fierce.
A mischevous ideaDo you think that the Right might go for a deal where they can have all the handguns they want in exchange for total civil equality for LGBT people?
Remove two wedge issues in one stroke. :)
Also, duck! :)
Isn’t it obvious?Obama’s made it clear he doesn’t want this repeal to happen on his watch, and expects Democratic congressmen to fall on their swords to keep his fingerprints off the engineered “failure.”
Obama really wanted the GOP to take the Senate too. Then he could blame the Republicans in Congress whenever he needed to reneg on (another) campaign promise, and still pass unpopular corporate giveaways citing “political reality,” the Democratic faithful would fall for it hook line and sinker, and re-elect him in 2012 to prevent the GOP from getting full control again (the “I remember” video campaign was a foreshadowing of this).
He would have gotten away with it too, had it not been for that meddling Tea Party! They show up at the GOP primaries, nominate a bunch of wack-a-doodles in key races who scared off the electorate, and now the Dems still have the Senate, darnit! So much for the plan.
[News flash: The Tea Party is the second best thing that has happened lately for GLBTs and Progressives (right after the Log Cabin Republicans). The Tea Party prevented the GOP from taking the Senate, and let's be honest - they did try to warn you about Obama. How many more "Joker" posters did they need to make?]
The Republican House alone is a weak fig leaf to hide behind. Dems still have the Senate, and could cram DADT repeal back in there no matter what the House does, the same way they stripped the public option out of health care “reform.” (Obama and the Dems are hoping you won’t remember that. I just reminded you.)
ActuallyThe public option was blocked in a Republican-run committee while the Republicans were falsely claiming ‘the will of the people’ didn’t want it, etc, on the news the meanwhile.
Spoon? As if we haven’t been using the 1/8 teaspoon to “fight” for years. Money CAN be a weapon, but only truly effective when it is withheld, and not wasted and wasted and wasted on campaigns……..
love the referencePlato would be proud, as would the Buddha. This administration’s advocacy is as empty as the shadows on the wall of a cave. But it’s keeping us all from doing anything, isn’t it, as we “wait and see if they really mean it this time”, time after time after time…we are so like an abusive spouse, or someone suffering from religious hysteria. Let’s hope we don’t go back and say, “It’s okay, I guess we really do need you” out of fear of going it alone. Because no one needs the abuse we’ve been doled out by our Farce Advocate.
*NARF*Zoe, it’s past time for us to take over the world!
AmericaBlog,citing the Financial Times, reports that Bush told some visiting British officials that he would have endorsed Obama if he’d been asked. http://www.americablog.com/201… If that doesn’t say everything that needs to be said about Obama, I don’t know what ever could.
And Dubya is a prankster as we all knowbut still…
Shrub is snarky as well and there was no love lost between McCain and Bush.
Now I do remember that before and after the election, Condi Rice couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face everytime Obama’s name came up and one of the Bush twins was not willing to disclose who she voted for…
In sum…I can actually believe this.
Yeah. About that coming back again and again thingI’ll admit I voted for three Democrats (two good and one okay who was running against Tom Tancrazy without a progressive opponent). However Bennet is going back to the Senate over my objections–I voted Green there.
Looks like it’s time to start mounting substantive campaigns against even the “okay” Democrats.
For that matter, it looks like it’s time to start building the infrastructure for a progressive party (whether Green or Democratic-Socialist or whatever). The Progressives are fractured throughout the country and we’ve got to get to where we’re breaking past the center-right Democrats and the batpoop crazy right Republicans.
Unfortunately, thanks to the Hatch Act, I’m ineligible to run for office. Otherwise I’d be doing it in a heartbeat.
I can smell something coming from the White HouseIt smells fierce, but I’m pretty sure it’s not advocacy. Unless that’s what the cows have been eating, that is.
The LGBT community has always been the bargaining chip Since day 1 of the Obama administration, Obama tried to set a new tone, willing to give up on what he campaigned on. He set the stage from the get go that not everything he was elected to do could be done. The Dems in congress followed this lead, and hence nothing totally meaningful has beed done.
1. Bush and the rest of the criminals let off the hook.
2. A health care reform that sucks.
3. Military and defence spending still run amock. (Black Water)
4. A stimulous spending bill that did very little for infrastructure.
Just to name a few.
After the election in 2004, Bush and the republicans claimed with that election Bush had a mandate and was doing what the people re-elected him for. Obama won with more votes than Shrub, and yet he backed away from everything. Hell Obama had a 60 seat majority in the Senate, and a House majority as well. The House passed many pieces of legislation. Obama failed to stand up for anything to put presure on the Senate. This was Obama’s way of comprimise.
And anything happening with DADT, DOMA, ENDA was off the table from the start. As well as any meaningful change. Obama failed to lead.