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The Rachel Maddow Show on the President's gay "meet & greet"The Rachel Maddow Show has done a superior job with their ongoing series "Fierce Advocate", which takes a critical look at promises made, kept, and broken by President Obama to the gay community. Above you can see guest host Alison Stewart explain why so many people have become frustrated, and whether yesterday's Pride Month acknowledgment in the east room of the White House helped smooth things over. She also chats with one of the guests, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, about attending the event and personally meeting the President. The Lt. Col., who's just months away from being discharged under DADT, thought it went well, but with the clock ticking on his dismissal from the military, it seems highly unlikely the President will step in to help. Which means another highly decorated, honorable soldier will soon be unfairly drummed out of the service. Submitted by on Tue, 2009-06-30 09:14. |
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And this is why folks are annoyed at Obama
He's in full deflection mode. His answer, to everything, in a nutshell is: "Go talk to Pelosi."
Indeed, given the precedent that one has with the integration of blacks in the military and his own admission that we're in wartime you would think that, if he had any balls at all, he would at least issue a stop-loss executive order for the duration of our (seemingly endless) ongoing military engagements. But he's not even willing to do that.
It's also telling that he, the so-called "Commander-in-Chief" is unwilling to stand up to the officers in the military who, in-theory, are his subordinates. If, indeed as Obama himself says, a clear majority of Americans think DADT should go then it is not for a bunch of bigots in military leadership to dictate their personal will over the president and the American people. The military serves the people of the United States, it does not dictate policy to them nor over the elected President.
However, Obama is a hypocrite in claiming he will be our "friend" and "ally" given that he is also making it clear that his administration will act to defend DADT (and DOMA) in the courts. To claim that he has to defend those laws is an open lie, as previous presidents have resisted defending laws they disagreed with, or at least done the absolute bare minimum required of them in doing so.
So his suggestion that we'll be happy looking back on the Obama Administration rings hollow. To me it sounds like we will continue to have to fight for and win whatever victories we can entirely on our own, and that he'll try and claim credit for them after the fact.
Sad
That the President could look Lt. Col. Fehrenbach in the eye, knowing that he could prevent this decorated hero's discharge with a stroke of his pen, and yet do nothing.
Did any of the attendees yesterday directly ask the President why he refuses to issue an executive order halting the DADT discharges until a legislative repeal can be enacted? I have not seen any reports on this as of yet.
executive orderrrr
i sort of wish rachel was there. because she always mentions the executive order that obama seems to be able to do...but hasn't yet done (the guest host also mispronounced "Fehrenbach" twice)
..but thats the one thing that really irks me about DADT. i keep saying i know he cant repeal it right away...i get that...but over and over again, i hear he CAN sign an executive order to halt the discharges...
i know there are some people here who have served, so what am i missing? CAN HE SIGN IT? can he not? is there more to an executive order that we dont know about?
now, maybe mr. Fehrenbach did mention the executive order to Obama....i don't know, and i wish the host had asked him if he did....but i guess we'll have to see what happens in the coming weeks/months
You're a nice kid, Victor, but you were PLAYED!
Oh and Allison, it wasn't about kissing and holding hands. You could get arrested by the cops just for BREATHING!
Gays and lesbiands congregating, even in a completely non-sexual setting could be arrested. Taht's how Tb Hunter got busted -- in an invasion of a private home!
Here's my two cents on the event
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2009/06/30/cocktails-at-barrys/
Nice to have people over for cocktails. But the hangover is unbearable.
Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is so
Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is so charming! I wonder if he's single...
I'm starting to agree with the Obama adminstartion on this issue I must say. If he issued a stop-loss it would do two things, it would be a president blatently ignoring a law that was created by congress (albeit an unjust law). We didn't like our last President doing this if I remember correctly.
And secondly, it would take any steam out of actually repealing the law in as lasting way in congress. They will put it off, and say, if Obama didn't win reelection, a President Palin orRomney (gahhhhh the thought of it...) could easily reverse the executive order.
I think he's got a solid long-term plan for success. But like he said, he's not gonna tell us to wait or stop pushing our goals through, he needs us to keep on him.
Obama's Evasion
Actually, it's not a well-known fact, but the discharge of gay military personnel has been stop-loss'd in the past by Bush Sr. for the first Gulf War. Technically the Commander-in-Chief has considerable latitude to stop disciplinary discharges (which is essentially what DADT discharges are) in a time of war. The CiC also has a lot of latitude otherwise, as Harry Truman exercised when he desegregated the armed forces via executive fiat.
Even putting that aside, there is in fact legislation in the pipe, which it seems that Obama studiously avoids mentioning.
Bill HR1283, which is co-sponosored by the congressman from my district, is sitting in sub-committee seemingly going nowhere. It strikes me as interesting that Obama will not call out the bill by name, or even mention it's existence. Instead he makes vague statements to challenges with the leadership of the military, whose opinions quite frankly shouldn't matter very much in this issue.
This implies that Obama is indeed pandering to military officers, many of whom are known to be evangelical Christians and who don't want to see DADT revoked.
If nothing else, Congress could halt the discharges simply by slipping a couple of lines into one of the military funding bills they apss every couple of months to even halt the discharges or simply refuse to fund them. And let me be clear on that: Congress has been passing budgets that contain funding to pay for the discharges!
Obama and the Democrats in Congress are playing a game of saying one thing and then doingthe opposite.At the podium they claim they want the policy gone. At the legislative level they are not acting to repeal it and they are providing funding to keep the discharges going.
In short, they're stabbing us in the back very deliberately. And smiling sympathetically while they do it.
I'm sorry but the President
No, he'll be happy to take the credit
So far what victories we've been winning have largely been without any support from Obama, or his cronies Pelosi and Reid. Indeed, he's been fairly explicit that we need to win over Congress.
So, basically, Obama is going to do little or nothing. We'll do all the heavy lifting. He'll maybe sign a few bills that happen to make their way to his desk. And when all is said and done he'll act as if he was the driving force all along.
Since when
Since when do we expect Presidents to do all the heavy lifting on civil rights issues? I don't think African-Americans expected for a second that a president would fix all their problems in the 60s. Sure LBJ eventually signed the Civil Rights legislation,ut not after hard fought battles from the grass roots.
In the end, if it gets done I could care less if Obama takes credit or not for it. And I believe it WILL get done. So that's all that matters. We'll just have to see what happens won't we?
It matters because...
...it is by no means clear that it will get done.
As I mentioned in another post, DADT is just one example of where legislation has been pushed into the pipe but is going nowhere. Nancy Pelosi has been evasive at best as to if the Democrat-controlled Congress will get around to any of this and Obama is likewise being evasive as to what extent he'll actually support any of these efforts, as opposed to just waiting to see what will happen.
Keep in mind, the discharges are not free. Our tax dollars are being used to discharge our gay bretheren from the military. Just as our tax dollars are happily used to support the families of others while similar benefits are denied to our families.
This is all happening right in front of Obama and he can't even manage a little outrage. Just an indifferent ackowledgement that it's wrong but that's just the way it is.
The LGBT community worked a lot harder to return the Democrats to power than the Democrats are apparently prepared to work for us.
As for since when do presidents do heavy lifting on civil rights issues? Two words: Abraham Lincoln.
Delaying is very serious
It may seem that delaying won't be a problem. I mean whats a extra few months right? The problem is this. The congressional schedule isn't going to free up. Climate Change and Health care are still being debated in Congress and the Nomination process of Judge Sotomayor will hold up the Judiciary Committee(Hates Crimes, ENDA and DOMA go through them) for weeks.
Every week they delay lowers the chance of this legislation. With Summer and Winter Recess waiting on the legislation will push the harder more important bills to 2010. Look how convenient they're already in an election year. Do you expect DADT to get repealed during an election year, let alone DOMA?
Delaying is very serious. These bills we're asking for are old issues, the legislation has been written up and sometimes passed before. The bills have been debated to death and are supported by nearly all US polls. There is no reason to dela.
Excellent Point
msark raises an excellent point here.
A large part of Obama's lukewarm interest in LGBT rights issues has to do with his determination to avoid getting dragged into the GOP's so-called "Culture Wars". He's been pouring a lot of outreach into groups like religious conservatives (hello, Rick Warren at the Inauguration anyone?) and likewise the Dems in Congress are trying to avoid such issues as well.
Why else do you suppose that they're making it sound like it would be so hard, in a Congress where both chambers are controlled by the Democrats, to push through any pro-gay legislation? And if they can't do it now, when they have an overwhelming majority, what will happen if they lose seats in the mid-terms?
But it's the mid-terms that are the real issue. As with Obama himself, the Dems in Congress are trying to avoid "Culture War" issues (i.e. us). A lot of the legislation that is being floated around things like DADT is not new and quite frankly has been debated to death already. It's not as if you can't argue that these are new issues that haven't already been under the microscope a dozen times.
The truth is that come 2010 the Dems are not going to want to touch DADT and DOMA, and thus provide fresh ammunition for GOP "Culture Warriors" in the election cycle. If they acted now the furor would likely die down by then. But if they wait then they'll have to debate the matter during campaign time.
After the election won't be good either. Even if the Dems don't lose seats (and ruling parties often do in mid-terms) we'll be going into 2011 and it will be time for presidential campaigning to start rolling. Because in our sick society we can and will spend two years, a half-term, building up to a presidential election.
Just as a fact, DADT and DOMA have Bill Clinton's signature on them because, despite all his pro-gay talk, when he found himself under conservative pressure he buckled and capitulated.
Obama is not likely to want to sign any major LGBT rights bills in 2011-2012. He's too busy courting the Center-Right and religious conservatives within the black and Latino communities. There's a political strategy that some executives favor that if they don't want to be seen doing something they lobby the legislature to not send them any bills they'd be pressured to sign.
If Obama wants to court groups that aren't gay-friendly then his best bet is to make sure that Pelosi and Reid don't send him any bills that would be seriously controversial. So far, they seem willing to oblige him on that.
Obama can pretend to be gay-friendly with little public spectacles like this (which Clinton used to do as well) while at the same time obstructing any real progress that would require him to do something.
After years of this, he'll maybe let a few things slide at the end of his presidency and then pat himself on the back for what a "fierce advocate" he was.
Lyndon Johnson did all the heavy-lifting on black civil rights
ALL of it!
JFK's attitude towards black civil rights was exactly like Obama's to LGBT rights.
Heavy Lifting
While I don't agree with the "Give the President a Pass" group, I think you're wrong that LBJ did ALL the heavy lifting on black civil rights.
You're saying that the black community and black leadership, some of whom DIED to advance those rights, did nothing? Because that's the point the OP was making. Did you misunderstand, or are you actually suggesting that MLK was a do-nothing hack coasting on LBJ's coattails?
True, but what LBJ did do
True, but what LBJ did do was take an enormous political risk that he knew full well would hurt the party for a very long time.
In contrast, Obama, Pelosi and most of the present-day Democrats are unwilling to take even a little political risk on our behalf. They've been limiting themselves to very "safe" actions that will only ruffle the feathers of the most vehemently Right-wing people. Otherwise they're adopting a political posture of delaying actions and making vague promises of hypothetical actions that they may take in the future.
A large part of this frustration is that it isn't just Obama, it's also Pelosi, Reid and the rest of Congress. I have no doubt that there are drafts of bills for repealing DOMA on several congressmens' laptops. There already is a bill (HR1283) in committee to repeal DADT. Even ENDA, which has been under debate for years and years, is being treated as a major undertaking to pass, even in a Democratic Congress! And let's not even get started on hate crimes!
Obama came on the scene promising boldness and has instead been cautious. So of course people are upset. We've already been here with Clinton and we got burned, badly.
Absolutely
Orders
One would think that if a governor of a state can "temporarily suspend" executions due to Constitutional questions, then the President (Commander in Chief) could suspend any military discharges based on DADT until the lazy-ass congress does what they need to do. This is exactly what was meant by people saying that Obama does not have any experience as an executive. He has never, ever had to make decisions that affect anyone but himself. He does not know how to do it.
My concern now is that so many gays are - appropriately so - challenging the Obama administration, withholding support, stopping donations and demanding answers. Well, if in 2012, DADT and DOMA are overturned, are we going to go running as a community right back to Obama? What happened at the "cocktail party" was that his advisors saw that the gays were pissed so they said, "lets apease them a little bit...drinks and snacks will make them happy." They only want our money. He keeps saying, "It takes time, it takes time" while he issues a statement yesterday telling me what kind of lightbulbs I have to have in my house. REALLY? WTF???
Utterly Speechifying
No, no, no, Jason. Speachifing is only speaking and speaking is just talk. Remember: Actions are stronger than words? When you're a politician, then actions are the only thing that matters because politicians are bull shit factories.
1. He made a distinct point of comparing the fight for GLBT Civil Rights to the (Black) Civil Rights movement in the 60s. That is big in my book, considering that the comparison is often considered a slight (unjustly) in conservative African Am groups and individuals who are anti-gay and homophobic. But words are cheap.
2. "In this task, I will not only be your friend I will continue to be an Ally, Champion and president who fights with you and for you." There you have it. The sound bite that will come back to haunt him if he ever gets the chance to waver on signing any pro GLBT legislation. (and it may prove to help him even if he acts against LGBT rights.) I have said that he is unwilling to spend his chits on GLBT civil rights and he remains stingy with them. In the parlance of playing poker, I take his speach as a "Check", that is pass with the idea of delayig the opposition, thererby forcing them to raise the stakes. (GLBT rights activists are the opposition in this analagy as much as our detractors) His move isn't a "fold" nor a "raise." In truth, he has never spent a chit on us but makes it look like he did by promising he might some day.
3. The question is: If Obama reneges on these words what happens? Yes, the BLGT community will be pissed, but so what? I mean that! So, frickn' what? What will happen? We will be humiliated again by the Democratic Party Members. The past will repeat itself.
Say, three years from now, when Obama is next campaigning, after he has done nothing to help the cause, he has been all talk and chickened out at every chance and tried to play both sides by loading reports with anti-gay messages or even refused to sign pro-GLBT bills. And every single gay person is royally ticked off? What then? Nothing, because our Democratic friends and allies have shown that our concerns really don't matter. (It matters in an abstract, intellectual speach sort of way, but not in a practical do-something-about-it sort of way.) If we dare to speak up about it we will be painted as whiners, who are only looking out for our own selfish interests unable to see the greater good that Obama has accomplished and will continue to accomplish. Does anybody remember as far back as a year ago, when they were saying the same thing about Obama's gay detractors?
4. Here's the only damn question that matters. If a bill passes to end DADT or DOMA and Obama fails to sign it, for what ever frickn' reason, will that be enough to get you to NOT vote for him and if he signs those bills, will that be enough for you to NOT vote for him?
The people who answer yes to the first half of the question aren't going to be much of a threat to his re-election. But I'd guess that the people who answer the yes to the second half may be a sizable block.
5. Does Obama want to be remembered in history as a civil rights leader? I think he'd love that, I also think he'd love to have an ice cream cone right about now. The only difference is he is apt to do something about getting the ice cream cone. Will he be willing to pay the price for a civil rights crown? Time will tell, but don't hold your breath or order invitations.
As far as DADT he could end it tomorrow with a pen stroke, if he truely belived (like the lying sack said) that this was a matter of "National Security". Evidently this Commander In Chief doesn't have the balls that it takes to make this country safe even to the level of his own convictions. Sheesh!!!!!
What Obama did was pass the buck with an elastic cord attached to it like a Marx Brothers gag. If a bill ending DADT doesn't pass in congress (it won't) he can take credit for championing the lost cause. just for talking about it. And if by some fluke a DADT bill does pass; I'm sure his Democratic allies have assured him it won't, but if it does, he will be forced to face signing that bill. So what? He can eather say it is the "will of the People" while taking credit for it but he could just as easily find a plausible reason to veto the bill or merely let it fail. They have done this to us before.
If Obama wanted to end DADT, he would. That he won't end DADT, tells us that he doesn't stand beside us. As a matter of fact, he makes it painfully clear, while comically shouting across the room "I stand with you", that he is no where near our side.
Obama's on the right path