Today was a historic day in the Congress as Senators voted to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
With just a couple of sentences in his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Obama reaffirmed his intention to work with Congress to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell:"
Abroad, America's greatest source of strength has always been our ideals. The same is true at home. We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we're all created equal; that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else.
We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. (Applause.) We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate. (Applause.) This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. (Applause.) It's the right thing to do. (Applause.)
Today, Congress delivered on that promise. There are many people who are responsible for this day. First and foremost, the organizers and activists (including Lt. Dan Choi) who have spent a decade and a half pushing for the repeal of this unjust law deserve the bulk of the credit. It is the work of these organizers and activists that helped to change public perceptions around the military services of gays and lesbians. It is their consistent and tireless advocacy that PUSHED the political leaders to make this change in the law. It is important to underscore this fact as all of the congratulatory messages are shared across the internet and media. The community organizers make these types of social changes possible.
Steve Benen offers a comprehensive list of everyone who is responsible for today's civil rights victory:
It's worth pausing to note some of the folks who made this success possible.
* The LGBT community's activists and their allies -- For those demanding equality and LGBT civil rights, there are a variety of issues that fuel and motivate activism, but DADT has been a central rallying cry for many years. They helped get repeal on the map, helped push policymakers to do what's right, and it was the community's tireless efforts that helped deliver today's win.
* The American people -- Policymakers don't always follow the polls, but the more popular the proposal, the easier it is to pass. In the case of DADT, survey after survey showed the American mainstream overwhelmingly supportive of repeal -- regardless of party, ideology, age, race, gender, education level, income, or region. Had the public not shown such good sense, today's victory, in all likelihood, wouldn't have happened.
* U.S. troops -- Gay and lesbian soldiers helped tell their story, making it painfully obvious to decent people that the status quo wasn't working. The larger community of servicemen and women answered a survey, and their comfort with change made today possible.
* President Obama -- In 2008, candidate Obama ran on a platform that included DADT repeal as a key promise. In his first State of the Union address, President Obama put repeal on the front burner, urging Congress to make the long-overdue change, and raising the visibility of the issue to new heights. The president, his White House, and Organizing for America continued to push for repeal, and played an important role in making it happen.
* Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen -- Perhaps no one brought more credibility and stature to this debate than Gates and Mullen, both of whom not only endorsed repeal, but offered persuasive and powerful congressional testimony on the issue. In multiple hearings, Republicans kept rehashing tired talking points, and these two men kept knocking them down. It was absolutely pivotal.
* Joe Lieberman -- It pains me to admit it, because I've been exasperated with Lieberman for many years, but the truth is he showed real leadership on this issue, and today's victory is a direct result of his hard work.
* Harry Reid -- The Senate Majority Leader was not only on the side of angels on this issue all along, but he made damn sure it reached the floor when it looked like it might not. Reid invested endless hours in helping assemble the necessary votes, and worked with the House to get the standalone bill crafted just right. Without Reid's commitment and follow-through, the bill would have very likely died.
* Susan Collins -- There have been times when I've questioned whether she was negotiating in good faith. She was. Last week, Collins teamed up with Lieberman, when it would have been easy for her to quit and move on, and made the standalone a bipartisan bill, which in turn helped bring other Republicans on board.
* Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Patrick Murphy -- House Democrats have been on board with repeal from the outset, and were willing to pass this more than once to accommodate a serpentine process. Pelosi, Hoyer, and Murphy never wavered, and never blinked.
I could go on, and I don't want to short shrift other deserving figures. Kirsten Gillibrand, Barney Frank, Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, and many others made today possible.
The larger point, though, is that a variety of groups, figures, leaders, and policymakers established a goal and worked together to reach it. The result is a historic victory for American civil rights that all of us can be proud of.
For the sake of posterity, the rest of this diary will focus on sharing how some others are talking about the White House's role in helping to make the repeal of DADT a reality.
From Greg Sargent at The Plum Line
The White House:
Finally, the White House. Obama had been criticized for months on don't ask don't tell, with advocates complaining that his administration aggressively defended DADT in court and that he wasn't doing enough to rally the Senate to pass repeal. But the botton line is that the White House did everything possible to create the political climate necessary to make this happen. The Pentagon report and the testimony by Robert Gates -- and his public round of interviews calling on Congress to pass repeal for the good of the military -- were major game-changers.
Also: For all the criticism of the Obama tax deal, today's victory stands as partial vindication of his strategy. Getting the tax deal wrapped up early made the time for repeal, with only days left in the lame-duck session.
This is an important victory for the White House in another way. It will quiet all the talk about Obama's supposed "triangulating," because it demonstrates -- for the time being, anyway -- that even as the White House sees a need to trade away some core liberal priorities to compromise with Repubilcans, Obama seems to want to bring the left along with him, to whatever degree he can. This will make it tougher to argue that Obama's strategy is to deliberately alienate the left in order to win back the middle of the country.
From Andrew Sullivan:
Do gay activists, including myself, want to doubt it now? Of course, it's my job to push, to criticize, to explain, to shame, to encourage. But I did so precisely to advance what has happened today, and am glad that it was a small part of the climate that made it happen. I reiterate what I wrote barely a week ago:
It seems to me the events of the last month or so reveal that the Obama administration has finally delivered the goods for the military, which is hobbled by this dated, counter-productive policy, and for the gay community, by moving the issue deliberately through the Congress before the executive branch or the judicial branch.
Like 2009's removal of the HIV ban, which was as painstakingly slow but thereby much more entrenched, this process took time. Without the Pentagon study, it wouldn't have passed. Without Obama keeping Lieberman inside the tent, it wouldn't have passed. Without the critical relationship between Bob Gates and Obama, it wouldn't have passed. It worked our last nerve; we faced at one point a true nightmare of nothing ... for years. And then we pulled behind this president, making it his victory and the country's victory, as well as ours.
We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.
From Salon, Steve Kornacki writes:
Obama, it should be said, played this issue remarkably well. To listen to his liberal critics (at least before today), his handling of DADT has encapsulated all that's wrong with his presidency. He's lacked, in their telling, both a meaningful strategy and the stomach for a fight with Republicans. But the course he pursued actually made a lot of sense, as Saturday's vote attests. Obama took pains to get Pentagon and military leaders aboard, commissioning an exhaustive study of the issue and promising them he wouldn't preempt it with an executive order or legal fight.
While it was slow, the beauty of this process was that the final report, released three weeks ago, completely and authoritatively dismantled every rationalization that opponents of repeal could offer. The few moderate Republicans in the Senate who were open to repeal -- either because of their own consciences or because of political dynamics in their home states (or both) -- had nothing left to hide behind. Remember, it was only after the report's release that Scott Brown and Lisa Murkowski finally came on board. (The same, for that matter, was true for conservative Democrat Mark Pryor.) For the past two years, Obama has loudly insisted that he was working toward repeal. Saturday demonstrated that there was a method to the madness.
The Onion as usual does the best job of putting everything in perspective with respect to Barack Obama:
Barack Obama, the first black president, proved to millions this year that he is either trying his best to lead the nation during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, or he is the modern-day incarnation of Adolph Hitler. One of the two.
In 2010, Obama made a number of political compromises while still trying to pursue many of the reforms laid out during his 2008 campaign. Also, he was a totalitarian monster comparable to the perpetrator of one of the worst genocides in history. He is either a president who passed a comprehensive health care measure despite staunch opposition from powerful private interests, or a radical-Islamist sympathizer bent on systematically dismantling American democracy and eradicating all human liberty. He either lowered taxes for most Americans while failing to communicate that effectively, or he is pure evil. Whichever.
Barack Obama, two of the most important people of 2010: the one who was elected to be president of the United States and execute laws to the best of his ability, and the one who murders senior citizens and hates all white people. Only history will say which he is for sure.
The man is neither a messiah nor a corporatist sellout. I think that we would all do well to keep pushing for our issues while keeping our heads.
P.S. No need to leave comments that start with... "You are trying to stiffle dissent you Obamabot..." move along...