Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) pledged her support for the standalone bill to repeal the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy this afternoon. Cloture to pass a repeal as part of the defense authorization failed by a mere 3 votes last week.
Snowe was among several theoretical supporters of repeal who said she voted against cloture because of procedural issues: Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) objected to the time allotted to debate the underlying bill; and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said that the timing for repeal was, in his view, not quite right.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said, on the other hand, that she'd missed the vote because of a dental appointment. So, with Snowe's support, repeal supporters are within 1 vote of cloture -- and a repeal of DADT.
Who knows what Joe Manchin will do. As Booman reminds us, he's not exactly on the side of actual Democrats.
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3 comments:
Hopefully it won't die in the senate.
Honestly, this is what I was hoping for: actual legislation that busts DADT (or failing that a Supreme Court decision).
I know that Obama could have just made an executive order recinding it, but really, that's the *worst* possible solution. The moment a Republican (or hell, conservative Democrat) gets in, it gets reversed.
I think of the Mexico City Policy(also known as the Global Gag Rule). Due to it all being handled by executive order, it ends up being a political football. As soon as a liberal (or let's be fair, a moderate) gets in, it's dropped, as soon as a conservative gets in, it's reinstated. That's no way to handle DADT, it's not fair to anyone to jerk them around like that.
Although, as a point, I can't blame the executive order on the GGR. That shit hurts and kills people. That needs to be dealt with and fast. In all fairness, DADT is shameful but doesn't kill people. It can sit for a permanent solution, or at least something much harder to kill than an executive order.
In a twisted way, I think that Obama did the right thing on this by sitting on it. If he just waved it away, people would think "problem solved" and forget about it. By dawdling, people could be rallied against it and made to see that it is just not fair.
Maybe it's 4-dimensional chess, or maybe Obama is just a closet(ha!) homophobe, or maybe he's just fucking clueless. But the fact is, the best thing that could happen was to build up steam against it. And building up steam is exactly what is happening.
And honestly, I'm inclined to think that he knew that fact and chose to dawdle.
If it dies in the Senate though... grrr, dunno what to do, but the steam and will is there, just have to keep trying.
Did you know that Democrats are the real homophobes who created Don't Ask Don't Tell in the first place?
Zandar didn't!
Oh No!
Oh No!
Do carry on. Zandar's wrong, but not in the way you think he is, and you really have no business going on about someone else's "credibility problems". Just sayin'.
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