Tim Pawlenty really hates gay people (and really loves DADT)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty, looking ahead to 2012, is making sure to present himself to his fellow Republicans, and specifically to the party's right-wing base, not so much as the sort of midwestern technocrat he appears to be but as a good ol' social conservative extremist. He's adamantly pro-life, he says, and he's also, as one must be these days in the GOP, anti-gay, opposing both same-sex marriage and DADT repeal.

Regarding the latter, he says he'd reinstate it, even though a huge majority not just of the American people but of men and women in uniform oppose it, including not just Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps America's most revered current military commander (and conservative wunderkind), Gen. David Petraeus.

But apparently that's not quite extremist enough. Yesterday he told Think Progress he'd go even further, trying to block the military from being able to implement repeal:

PAWLENTY: We have to pay great deference, I think to those combat units, their sentiments and their leaders. That's one of the reasons why I said we shouldn’t have repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell and I would support reinstatement.

TP: And rescinding the funds for implementation, implementation of repeal?

PAWLENTY: That would be a reasonable step as well.

Yes, that's right, he actually wants to try to hinder the military's effort, as commanded by its civilian leadership and supported by the top brass as well as the rank and file, to do what it must to do away with DADT. That's almost treasonous. At the very least, it's Pawlenty giving the finger to the Constitution, Congress, and Obama, that is, to the very pillars of American constitutional government and civilian control of the military. It's just the sort of anti-Americanism that is so prevalent on the right these days.

Now, I don't know if Pawlenty actually believes this or if he's just pandering to the conservative base, playing his right-wing bona fides as any good Republican must.

If the latter, he's sure trying really hard.

********** 

Update: It may be that Pawlenty doesn't want gays in the military at all. What disgusting bigotry.

Tim Pawlenty, a social conservative extremist, just like the rest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Minnesota Gov. and likely GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is a sensible Midwestern moderate, an old-school sort of Republican, an antithesis to the Sarah Palins of the party?

Think again.

As Pawlenty told right-wing hatemonger Bryan Fischer on Wednesday, he's not just a fiscal conservative but a social one as well. He's "a strong supporter of the family, pro-life positions, traditional marriage positions" -- in other words, he's anti-abortion and anti-gay, the proponent in Minnesota of an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, the proponent of conservative judicial activism ("strict constructionists") and the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And, he said, he would reinstate Don't Ask, Don't Tell, misleadingly claiming that "the combat commanders and the combat units" are against gays being allowed to serve, even though a huge majority not just of the American people but of the men and women in uniform supported DADT repeal, including not just Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps America's most revered current military commander (and conservative wunderkind), Gen. David Petraeus.

Sure, Pawlenty may just have been pandering to the right-wing GOP base, and appearing on right-wing shows and playing up (or exaggerating) one's conservative bona fides is de rigueur for Republicans, but there's really nothing to suggest that he isn't the sort of social conservative he claimed he is. Really, it's just that most of the media's attention has been on his similarly conservative economic views, and that he doesn't come across as an unhinged extremist on social issues the way other leading Republicans do -- the way, say, Palin and Huckabee do. And in presenting himself as a credible social conservative, he's clearly distinguishing himself from another moderate-seeming fiscal conservative, Mitt Romney, who has tried so desperately to flip-flop himself into conservatives' hearts while failing miserably to overcome his decidedly un-conservative past (health-care reform, anyone?).

However sincere he may be, it's just so transparent what Pawlenty is doing, and it's telling that he'll even pander directly to a bigot like Fischer. In today's GOP, that's just what you have to do to get anywhere, particularly at the national level, with presidential aspirations driving you ever further to the extreme right.

Here's hoping Speaker Boehner learns to speak the truth

By R.K. Barry 

A CNN / Opinion Research poll conducted between December 17 and 19 indicated that 56% of Americans hold either a positive view of Obama's health-care reform or are of the opinion that it is not liberal enough. More specifically, 43% like it as it is and 13% would probably have liked to see a public option. That leaves 37% who are opposed because the reform package is too liberal and 7% who have no opinion.

Let's be clear here. Of those expressing an opinion, 56% reject the Republican critique of "Obamacare" and only 37% side with the GOP.

Given those numbers,  it is rather difficult to understand what Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) was talking about when he said of health-care reform that "we just need to repeal it as the American people have spoken out and said."

I'm sure if I spent just a bit of time doing some Google searches I could find a dozen more Republicans saying that their midterm gains were in large part about Americans rejecting health-care reform. I know recently-installed House Speaker John Boehner has been saying similar things. You will forgive me if I don't dig up all the relevant quotes. It hardly seems necessary. 

John McCain recently railed against the repeal of "don't-ask-don't-tell" as an affront to the electorate despite the fact that polls put support for gays serving openly in the military at upwards of 80%. Same idea. Say the opposite of what is demonstrably true and a lot of people will believe the lie and repeat it either because they want to believe what is untrue or because they are too lazy to do a bit of research.

We're not talking about differences of opinion about things that cannot be shown empirically but about things that are, by modern and generally-recognizable standards of truth, considered to be matters of fact. And before you take issue with polling as a source of gathering information of citizens preferences, I assure you that it has become pretty darn accurate over time.

But just think about the idiotic ideas that have fairly recently been in circulation amongst far too many Americans: Obama is a Muslim; he was not born in America; he is a socialist; he hates America; climate change is an elaborate hoax; and almost any piece of weirdness that comes out of Glenn Beck's mouth. And then there are the claims by various Republicans that Americans reject health-care reform or gays serving openly in the military.

Conservative politics in America seems to be far too much about just saying shit, no matter how absurd, just to see who is either stupid enough or lazy enough to accept it as truth.

I once read something, which I admit may not be true but struck me as plausible and at least suggestive. It was a claim that the KGB, the intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union, would work through its networks to put clearly untrue information in circulation that would support its interests simply because a certain subset of the population will always accept as plausible anything they hear and repeat it.

In my experience, it is not uncommon to hear someone offer an opinion contrary to all facts with the commnt that they had heard it somewhere, though they could not tell you where or what proof was provided.

For the longest time, the suggestion that tobacco did not cause cancer was in this camp, though thankfully that is now a part of the past.

As I say, just put it out there and some people will believe it and repeat it. Too much of politics is done this way, which, when bending the truth, seems to be about the maxim "go big or go home."

What I would say to the Eric Cantors and John Boehners of the world is that they should go ahead and work for the legislative agenda of their choice or the choice of those they think got them elected. But please do try to keep the bullshit to a minimum about the extent to which you are speaking for "the American people."

Although if you want to attack health-care reform, which seems to be pretty popular, and fight for tax cuts for the super rich, which seem to be pretty unpopular, that's fine with me. See you in 2012.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Oh, the horror!

By Mustang Bobby

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) responds to a question from a reporter from a conservative news service about the ramifications of the repeal of DADT in the military. (His reaction at 0:33 is classic.)

Is Obama finally moving forward on gay rights?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

President Obama, although he still supports civil unions over same-sex marriage, said yesterday that he believes the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed.

"Repealing DOMA, getting ENDA [a bill to protect LGBT people from discrimination] done, those are things that should be done," Obama told The Advocate the night before signing Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal into law. "I think those are natural next steps legislatively. I'll be frank with you, I think that's not going to get done in two years. We're on a three- or four-year time frame unless there's a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus."

The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed in 1996, defines marriage as strictly heterosexual. It's currently facing multiple legal challenges, including two cases from Massachusetts in which a federal judge already ruled that part of the law is unconstitutional. Obama's Justice Department is defending DOMA. 

The Justice Department has to defend DOMA regardless of what the president's own position on the law, but what we seem to be getting here is a signal from Obama that he has a plan and will work towards full equality for homosexuals.

The problem is, there won't be "a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus," nor even a fake one. The Republican Party, individual dissenters aside, is anti-gay. And so it is highly unlikely that DOMA will be repealed anytime soon.

Still, it is noteworthy that Obama is speaking out more forcefully than usual on gay rights. He even told The Advocate that he's "wrestling" with same-sex marriage. The preference for civil unions over marriage rights is a cowardly cop-out, of course, and I've long thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt, that Obama actually supports marriage equality but just doesn't want to take that position publicly.

I just wonder if this is all just hot air for the base. After all, will Obama really push for DOMA repeal? (And, from there, for marriage equality?) Will he spend his political capital on gay rights? Sure, DADT repeal was a major victory for him, but it happened more in spite of Obama than because of him -- he never aggressively pushed for it and, of course, repeal only came after military leaders called for it and after a military study (and public opinion polls) showed overwhelming support for it. By the time DADT was repealed, it was safe to be against DADT -- and Obama knew it.

And now? Don't count on much happening. I don't want to be overly critical here, but Obama will be able to ride the wave of DADT repeal for a while, basking in its glow, and there won't be any urgency for him to turn his attention to DOMA, not with Republicans in control in the House, with Democrats far from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and with more pressing political concerns to attend to in the lead-up to 2012.

So, yes, call me a cynic.

Still pleased

By Creature

Days like today don't come around often. DADT, START, 9/11 first responder bill, then a kick-ass press conference. Good stuff.

Polling and public policy: DADT

By R.K. Barry

There are many things about politics that are really annoying. One of them, as I have previously noted, is the tendency of political parties just coming off of significant electoral success to suggest that they have a mandate to implement every last one of their platform planks. You know, the American people have spoken, blah, blah, blah, and everything we - the newly elected majority - want to do has been sanctioned.

This is a given. We know. But with the accuracy of polling being what it is, it becomes increasingly hard to make statements of this kind that are so clearly inconsistent with what the American people appear to be saying at any given moment.

Such was the case recently when Arizona Senator John McCain blasted the Senate as it moved to repeal "don't-ask-don't-tell (DADT)," which would enable gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Of those who would repeal DADT, McCain said the following:

"So here we are about six weeks after an election that repudiated the agenda of the other side," [and those who would repeal don't-ask-don't-tell] are acting in direct repudiation of the message of the American people."

Well, no. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly eight in ten Americans favour gays and lesbians serving openly. Significantly, this cuts across partisan and ideological lines, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, liberals, conservatives and white evangelical Protestants in favor of homosexuals' serving openly.

The question is, what do we make of all of this? McCain can read polling numbers as well of the rest of us so he understands that on this issue the tide has turned and that his view is in the minority. But in a certain sense this goes back to an old political debate between the idea of instructed political representation versus representation, which, once elected, believes that it owes those who have voted them in only their best judgement. (Check out Edmund Burke on this.)

Those who would argue that they owe the electorate only their best judgement typically suggest that issues, taken one at a time, are far too complicated for the average voter to comprehend (even if they would never say that publicly). To run the government by taking the pulse of the nation on any given initiative would surely, they argue, lead to chaos. Government by referenda never works, only those who represent the people know how it all needs to hang together.

On this view, the voters, in the last election rejected something called "the left" and embraced a competing view coming from the right. Challenging the repeal of DADT is, for many conservatives, the kind of stance that defines this newly embraced conservatism - the polls of the moment be damned. Republicans who are off side, previously supportive voters - they just don't get it, or so the argument would go.

The problem is that it is not that simple. And when you govern in a way that indicates that you are only responsible to the electorate on voting day, you really start to piss off a lot of people who don't identify particularly strongly with the left or right, the so-called "swing voters" or independents.

I am simply saying that in an era when we poll everything, it's that much harder to govern. Sometimes polling numbers are so strong in one direction or another that we ignore them at our peril. Sometimes polling numbers are driven by effective mis-information campaigns and have to be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes poling numbers indicate a strongly held view that a government would do well to ignore such as attitudes among white soldiers in the late 1940s opposing racial integration of the armed forces just before Truman did exactly that.

Politicians who trail in opinion surveys going into an election like to say that the only poll that counts is the one on election day. If that was ever true, it no longer is.

But how to use polling information in the construction of good public policy does remain a thorny issue. How to respect the views of the electorate on any particular issue while knowing that governments have to balance countless programs and initiatives, that's hard work. And then there is just the need to do what's right.

Polling: Can't live by it, can't live without it.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Republican obstructionism: McConnell opposes START ratification

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

CNN:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voiced opposition Sunday to the New START - a nuclear arms treaty with Russia - saying that members of his party need more time to consider the legislation.

"I've decided I cannot support the treaty," McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think if they'd taken more time with this, rushing it right before Christmas strikes me as trying to jam us."

He said trying to get a vote before Christmas was not the best way to "get support of people like me," and that GOP senators are "uneasy" about the legislation. 

Bullshit. This is pure spin, and you shouldn't believe a word of it. McConnell's strategy ever since President Obama took the oath of office was to try to block every Democratic initiative in order to deny the president any possible legislative victories heading into 2012. He wants Obama to be a one-termer, after all.

Now, all Republicans want Obama to lose in 2012, of course, but McConnell has made it his mission not to allow for compromise on anything. Given this, yesterday's DADT repeal was all the more amazing, as eight Republicans joined with Democrats to put an end to that bigoted policy.

McConnell doesn't want or need "more time" to debate START, he wants to kill it. And he hopes to do that by delaying and procrastinating as much as possible, by claiming he's all about a meaningful legislative process (and hoping to win public support that way, by duping people into thinking he's sincere) while being a partisan obstructionist behind the scenes.

In other words, there's no way "people like [him]" will ever support START -- or anything else of significance, for that matter. I realize it's his job to be full of shit, but it's oozing out of his pores with alarming intensity.

This, as we head into 2011, is simply the Republican way.

Progress in America: DADT goes down

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

The Senate voted to repeal DADT on Saturday. We've written about DADT a lot here, and I won't repeat myself here, but I must say that while I am neither gay nor in the military, nor even American, I am incredibly happy about this. It was a hard-fought victory for the opponents of this bigoted policy, a victory not just for President Obama and the Democrats in a partisan political sense but more broadly for liberty, for the noble principles for which America purports to stand.

I may not be American, but I have roots in America, and I genuinely love America, and yesterday, I believe, America took a significant step forward in its progress towards justice.

Here's the Times:

The Senate on Saturday voted to strike down the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, bringing to a close a 17-year struggle over a policy that forced thousands of Americans from the ranks and caused others to keep secret their sexual orientation.

By a vote of 65 to 31, with eight Republicans joining Democrats, the Senate approved and sent to President Obama a repeal of the Clinton-era law, known as "don't ask, don't tell," a policy critics said amounted to government-sanctioned discrimination that treated gay, lesbian and bisexual troops as second-class citizens.

Mr. Obama hailed the action, which fulfills his pledge to reverse the ban, and said it was "time to close this chapter in our history."

Of course, there is still a lot more to be done. While gays and lesbians will be able to serve openly, to fight and die for their country, we must remember that they do not enjoy equal rights as American citizens. They are still subjected to widespread bigotry, in particular with respect to marriage.

America has come a long way, but the fight must continue. Those noble principles often seem like little more than aspirational and unachieveable goals, but now, after this historic vote, and with Obama's signature soon to come, they are more within reach.

The forces of darkness, mostly within the Republican Party, will continue to do all they can to block progress from their perches on the wrong side of history, but they must be overcome if America is ever truly to achieve her potential.

The end of DADT

By Creature

I don't hate everything about politics right now. It's strange.

Are we about to get DADT repeal?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe. Yes, just maybe. There's no good reason to be optimistic, given how the Senate works, but, well, things are looking good.

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown today voiced his support for a stand-alone repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, bringing the bill one vote over the 60-vote threshold that it will need to reach if and when the Senate votes on the measure in the coming weeks...

Brown's backing means that – on paper – supporters of the repeal have 61 senators in favor of the bill. On Wednesday Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lisa Murkowski both announced their support for the stand-alone repeal. The House passed the clean repeal on Wednesday and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to bring it to a vote in the Senate before the end of the year.

With the $1.1-trillion omnibus budget bill pushed aside (and off into the next Congress), mainly because Republicans (who had been involved in crafting it) were going to use it to paralyze the Senate (by requiring that it be read in its entirety, out loud by Senate clerks, all 1,924 pages of it), there would now appear to be enough time to get DADT repealed and perhaps also START ratified.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced late today that he would hold cloture votes (which effectively end any filibusters) on DADT and the DREAM Act (which is unlikely to pass) on Saturday. It looks like the Senate will vote on stand-alone DADT repeal before turning to the START treaty.

Credit where credit is due: Joe Lieberman has been a big supporter of DADT repeal and seems to be the one behind this legislative strategy:

I want to thank Senator Reid for his leadership in bringing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" to the Senate floor for a vote. I am confident that we have more than 60 votes to end this law that discriminates against military service members based solely on their sexual orientation. Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will affirm the Senate's commitment to the civil rights of all Americans and also make our military even stronger.

Now it's just a matter of getting the necessary Republican votes: Brown, Snowe, and Murkowski, and maybe also Collins, Lugar, and Voinovich.

No, we're not there yet, but we're close -- and I honestly didn't think it would get done.

And think about it.

If DADT is repealed and START is ratified, wouldn't that be an incredible way for this Congress to bow out? DADT repeal in particular would be a major victory for the Democrats' progressive base (and of course also for civil rights), particularly at the end of a two-year run that was hardly all that positive for progressives. And START ratification would be a major victory for Obama's foreign policy agenda.

It would be hard to maintain any momentum heading into the next Congress, with Republicans taking over the House and the Democrats coming back to a smaller majority in the Senate, but two such victories in the wake of the midterms and the bleak post-election period would give us a good deal to cheer about as we head into 2011.

House passes DADT repeal. Not that it matters or anything.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, the Senate may be paralyzed by Republican obstructionism and the stupid filibuster rule, but at least the House passed DADT repeal.

That's something, even if Republicans opposed it. (Presumably because they hate gays. How else to explain support for a bigoted policy rejected by an overwhelming majority of the American people and that the military itself opposes?)

Something that will result in nothing, though, because the Senate isn't about to budge, even if Democrats almost have the 60-vote supermajority needed for repeal (that is, to overcome the GOP's filibustering). As John Cole observes:

Now we get to sit around and wonder what kind of bullshit excuses Scott Brown, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Joe Manchin, and the other "moderates" come up with to block the bill.

Ain't democracy a gas?