re: #143 Obdicut

First, my view on the subject generally is pretty clear. It is, in my view, the 21st century equivalent of desegregation. For that reason, I give no absolution to any member of the Senate, on either side of the aisle, who does not do his or her utmost to actually get DADT repealed.

With respect to your question, I am well aware of the overwhelming vote against by the Repubs. However, as at least one poster has pointed out, it may well be that some of those Repubs personally favor repeal but are hoping they can avoid being punished for voting their conscience by leaving the matter for an Article III judge to decide. There may also be Dems who oppose repeal but will vote for repeal because they don’t want to be punished by their constituents. Since I do not purport to be able to look into the hearts of each member of the Senate, I cannot do more than state the obvious, that Dems as a group are likely more in favor of repeal than the Repubs. If my lack of superlative offends you, I apologize, but, as you and I spent much time discussing a few months back, I believe the Dems could push this through if they really cared enough to do so, just as they have with other issues that they felt were important enough to warrant a political “full court press.”

Incidentally, unless I have misunderstood what actually took place, here is how the current round has gone down
1. DADT repeal was not offered up as a standalone bill, but, rather, was attached to an appropriations bill. For my part, I would like to see it offered as a stand-alone bill, where our elected representatives can each be judged solely on his or her stance on this major civil rights issue. (i.e., Repubs can’t claim they voted to repeal because they didn’t want to punish the troops).
2. No vote was held on the actual bill. Rather,
3. A decision was made to not even put the bill to a vote because in a preliminary vote of sorts, there do not appear to be enough votes to overcome what is as yet only the threat of a filibuster.
In other words, the Dem leadership wimped out and didn’t even put the Repubs in the position of having to filibuster. You may recall during our last argument on this issue, which took place before the mid-term elections, I surmised that the Dems had bought into their own propaganda that Pres. Bush was elected solely because of the homophobe vote and were afraid of causing a voter backlash that would result in large Repub gains in the mid-term elections. Well, that concern no longer exists. That, clearly, is no longer a valid excuse for the Dems. Now, if they want to convince those of us in the center that they actually give a rat’s ass about real issues and not merely about scoring cheap propaganda points, they have an opportunity to use their super-majority while they still have it. In my book, their failure to do so even now suggests that the Dems’ “commitment” to DADT repeal is merely cheap politics and not a matter of fundamental commitment.

You are free to believe otherwise, but that’s my view.