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Michelangelo Signorile has a good clip up from his show, “Celebrate DADT Repeal, But Heed the Lesson,” where a listener from Oklahoma made the argument that Obama’s original plan (repeal of DADT via Congress) was what he wanted and eventually what was accomplished, despite calls from certain quarters for him not to appeal the ruling of Circuit Court Judge Virginia Phillips. Mike:
I took the opportunity to discuss why, though this is a big victory for the President, it only happened because of those activists — including grass roots activists and bloggers – putting the pressure on (I’ve posted a video from the segment below). Even Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Senator Levin, just a week before the vote, was pointing to the president’s foot-dragging, about which the Human Rights Campaign, throughout the year, was refusing to criticize the White House.In the end, through a series of fateful events — from Harry Reid pulling the government spending bill, clearing the schedule, to Senators Lieberman and Collins creating a stand-alone bill — “don’t ask, don’t tell” passed. In addition to fate and timing, it was because DADT repeal took on a life of it’s own thanks to activists’ relentless pressure, disrupting the president’s events, protesting Congressional leaders. It’s not a coincidence that other promises made by the president, where there was much less pressure from the left early on, didn’t pan out. And that’s the lesson of the DADT repeal saga for the LGBT movement and for all progressives.
While things worked out positively (thank you Mr. President), it’s quite interesting that the revisionist history is already being created, where activists “hated” the President, criticizing the administration’s every move and that somehow bloggers were obstructionists. That sounds more like apologist mewling rather than actually reading the archives to see that the call was for the President that the promises the President made, along with his repeated statements to hold him accountable, was all that was going on.
Now admittedly, there was way more rancor here in the comments than in any posts I wrote on DADT, but usually those get conflated with my own opinions on things. Yeah, we were all very tough on the administration, but was there any time where I said he 1) needed to lose in 2012 or 2) needed a primary challenger? No. The fact is I simply wanted promises made to be kept. The Cheetos-PJ wearing crowd pointed out the strategy flops, the foot-dragging and the very real contentious, even combative nature of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs any time a DADT question was asked. Bloggers didn’t make that up.
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Mike is right, of course.Except we still have DADT, even after this weekend’s “repeal”. And nobody knows for a fact when we’re no longer going to have it. So we’re celebrating the chance that sometime in the future we may not have it. And this is the best we could get with relentless pressure from the grassroots of the LGBT community. Gee, thanks, Barry. Thank goodness we never trusted you to handle this to begin with or maybe you would have made things even worse.
flames on the side of my face
It’s in the best interests of the mainstream organizations and the politicians to try and paint a picture of every dissenter being just a useless complainer. They want us to think that we cannot — or should not — have any real power unless we go along with what THEY want us to do.
and goodnight, Michael Bedwell, wherever you areThe point being, that generations of pushing and challenging got us to this point. Battles are not won by saying “pretty please,” nor should we forget the ones who went before.
This is a tribute you might find worthy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Yeah reallyAnd I hope the civil liberties community heeds the lessons here as well. Get Equal and the blogosphere changed the dynamic here. Kudos to the grassroots activists and bloggers, working with the forward-looking organizations like SLDN, for ratcheting up the pressure enough where Obama and Congress had to act. Hey, maybe the same approach would help on the civil liberties front!
We’re part of the strategyIt occurs to me that, given Obama’s history as a candidate and his background in community organizing, gay activism — and I mean real activism, GetEqual, Dan Choi, SLDN, all of us who have pushed — have been part of the strategy.
I think this post and others I’ve seen on other blogs congratulating those who did the pushing come close to the point without actuslly identifying it: Obama has said “push me” and “hold our feet to the fire” and that’s exactly what he meant — he’s still building that grassroots movement that he started during his campaign.
We wanted a leader, but his performance so far has not been as a leader who says “follow me” but one who says “march with me.” I think we’ve misread him in some essential and very important ways.
He’s an extraordinarily intelligent man, and I think one of the problems there is that he assumes everyone is, maybe not as smart as he is, but more quick on the uptake than they really are.
At this point, my respect for him has gone up a couple of notches, and I’m sitting here saying “Mr. President? I think I got it — finally.”
To be honest…Obama was right on the best way to repeal DADT was through legislation. Did we have to push and fight for it?? Of course. But that is what you do to your leaders when they fail to move quickly…you hold them accountable. It worked. It raised hell and the public got involved and it worked. If only we had been patient instead of voting democrats out of power…we could actually be able to achieve so much more. But the only way that will happen is in 2013..
Hopefully the gays will get over this need for self punishment and do the right thing
In any negotiation boththe carrot and the stick are necessary components. And in this debate the path to DADT repeal required a lot of stick near the end, and that element cannot be denied.
Oh come on.The vote in Congress was the biggest hurdle for ending DADT, and it is done. And that’s a good thing. What you’re right about is that the end of DADT is not the same as protected open service for LGB, and certainly not T servicemembers.
But it isn’t as though this was simply a symbolic or effortless hurdle. It’s a major one, and something to celebrate. It just doesn’t mean that the work is over.
And while I am certainly disappointed with the lack of advocacy from the President, McCain has proven vividly how much worse he would have been.
As for the President “handling it” that’s the point of the whole post – we have to maintain pressure and advocacy at all levels.
Sometimes I wonder how many of the people who are so bitter about how little the President or their elected officials did ever even bothered to pick up the phone or send a letter or email. I know some did, but it is tiring how many people never did and still complain so vehemently on how little their officials did.
Log Cabin & Witt major Congressional motivatorsWe should not forget the vital importance of the role of activists in pushing for repeal via the Courts. It was quite clear that the major explicit motivator for the Administration and for many members of Congress was the justified fear that if they didn’t act to repeal DADT themselves, the courts would continue to find it unconstitutional and would impose their own structures to deal with the consequences.
Obviously, it was also quite vital that gay activists and straight allies keep up the public pressure and visibility. But if we, or the civil rights movement overall, had to depend on exchanging pleasantries over cocktails, not much of substance would have happened.
Lets be seriousFor anyone to think that the DADTY Repeal WAS purposely done like this is very gullible and even if by some very strange chance it was is that all we get?
Not to be ungrateful (but i argue the fact that we need to be grateful and fall over over people for doing the right and just thing) but all the promised of ENDA and DOMA and all the rest and it took 2 years to get the DADT Repeal passed which was suppossed to be the EASY piece of legislation and had almosyt 80 percent of the countries support. There was something definately wrong that oit became that hard to get DADT done. If that was the best that Obama and HRC and Gay Inc could do we are throughly fucked with the rest of our agenda.
I throughly believe that if it wasn’t for the end push by Get Equal, bloggers and the LGBT Community itself DADT would not have made it through.
We have a very hard road ahead of us and we should learn a lesson from DADT. Which is that we all need to forcefully push and not leave it up to Gay Inc and the Dems.
That’s an evil thing to say
You mean that the gays have all that power that they voted the Democrats out of power.
Please, put down the crack pipe.
Every vote counts…dont be ridiculousIf you are living in the deluded world that your vote or any one vote cannot make a difference…then YOU not I need to put down the crack pipe. DADT is repealed yet look at all we went thru just so it could go away despite having support from the public. DOMA and ENDA are the next one the list but we dont really support for one of them..how the hell do you propose it will be repealed with the repugs back in the game?
My point stands..if we had been patient and more strategic about this whole thing we would have had ENDA in talks next. But the only way any more gay friendly bills are coming this term is if Santa drives his Ferrari engined sleigh from SantaHeaven and ploughs all the republicans…i.e NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!
Yeah let’s be seriousSo much of what the Democrats were trying to do was absolutely stymied by the Republicans in the Senate. We saw that time and time again: a united GOP with no qualms about pushing every hot button it could lay its slimy fingers on, and if the Democrats compromised to get legislation passed, progressives complained that the Democrats were selling out. And every time, the Dems held their ground and didn’t get stuff passed, progressives complained that the Democrats and President Obama were feckless. And everybody always says that, oh, the President didn’t really do anything to push this legislation through. What the president did or did not do to push legislation is information so easily spun that the real truth is unknowable. Remember all those complaints from the GOP that the President wasn’t meeting with them or listening to their ideas?
In truth, the Democrats got a lot done… and yes, all hands had to be on deck for that. Get Equal, SLDN, everyone… and the President. Have you considered that without the Bush tax cut compromise the Obama was widely criticized for, no Republican would have crossed the aisle to vote for DADT repeal, or health care assistance to first responders, or food safety reform or START?
Don’t get me wrong, the Democrats made plenty of mistakes. But I for one am happy that historic progress has been made, and am looking forward to the fight to take out DOMA, to push through ENDA, and to knock down the remaining barriers for trans people in the military. And I am still proud of the accomplishments of the Democrats and the President for whom I knocked on hundreds of doors in New Hampshire to get elected.
No…Who voted the Democrats out of power was your statement and it wasn’t the gays that did that; the gays don’t have that much electoral power.
Talk to the African Americans, Latinos, and the young people that didn’t show up at the polls for the midterms if you want to go there. (But then again, those groups typically don’t show up for midterm elections)
Talk to the women that swung back to the Republicans in the last election cycle, if you want to go there.
You’re (still) on the “blame the gays” meme that the Democrats lost over 60 seats in the House and it’s disgusting.
Actually glbt voters did shift towards the GOP……which surprised and depressed me. I don’t know if you saw this: http://www.ebar.com/news/artic…
Basically, the GLBT vote went from 19% for the GOP to 31% GOP. Sadly, I don’t think we can blame all of this on those absurd GOProud people. Certainly the GLBT community voted overwhelmingly Democratic. But there was definitely a lot of apathy going on.
The real story is, of course, the enormous shift among those “independent voters”, and the fact that hardline conservatives were energized whereas many progressive leaning people, especially young people didn’t show up at the polls.
But I think you’re reading too much into the “voting the Democrats out of power” comment. I don’t think it’s a “blame the gays” thing.
I know that GLBT voters shiftedand, for that matter, middle class people of color shifted to the GOP and there were a lot more middle class POC’s at the polls in Novemeber than LGBT voters (+ of course, some of those middle class POC voters are LGBT voters, I would assume.
SeriouslyI don’t think the specifics of how and when DADT repeal got through Congress were part of any grand strategy — it was poised to go right down the toilet. As for it taking two years, yes, it was a no-brainer, which I’ve been saying all along, but until this summer, no one was making enough noise to draw the kind of attention it needed. So yes, we finally had real demonstrations, people harassing the president — and more important, representatives and senators — and court cases that are helping to belabor the obvious.
That was the whole point of my comment: Obama has been telling us to get behind and shove, and we finally did.
And the same thing has to happen with DOMA and ENDA — lots of yelling, lots of confrontation, and the courts. The dividend is that, if you disrupt a speech or news conference by McCain or any other wingnut, it’s not going to change their minds — but the press will notice.
I think Obama is very well aware that Washington is a seething hotbed of inertia, and that it takes something outside of Washington to make it move. That would be us.
The vote was NOT the biggest hurdle.The biggest hurdle was Barack Obama, who despite all the lovey-poo rhetoric directed at our community, did everything he could to impede repeal. In case you’ve forgotten, DADT was dead, struck down by a federal court. Obama appealed, bringing it back from the dead. The bloody policy would be gone now, once and for all, except for Obama and his DOJ.
As has been pointed out here numerous times, legislative repeal is considerably weaker than judicial repeal. A future congress and president are free to reinstate it. But having the policy declared unconstitutional by a federal judge would have had the effect of killing it permanently.
And so it’s back in Obama’s hands. And for some reason a lot of people seem to have forgotten everything he’s done to us and blithely assume he’s going to end DADT quickly and firmly (i.e., with no segregated quarter or other rubbish). I hope they’re right, but there’s plenty of room for reasonable skepticism. Plenty.
I’m still happy and you can’t make me not be.I’m not replying to the original poster, just exhausted from reading all the bitchin’ and moanin’ since DADT repeal was voted on. I had to go to other sites to feel a little of the joy online.
Isn’t this the greatest federal legislative victory for gay and lesbian people in the history of our country? It makes me sad to see that people jumped in immediately to try to denigrate it. But, oh well. Carry on.
It’s a silly thing to sayto think the gays had an effect on midterms. As Clinton said in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
I agreeto presume this was all part of a grand master plan, is to presume part of the plan was to have the vote fail twice on the NDAA, and then swing for the fences on the standalone.
There were aspects of it that were well-planned, the military buy-in. (If you overlook the terrible TIMING of that.)
But it doesn’t seem they put much thought into the pragmatic difficulties of getting to 60 votes in the Senate.