You may recall that Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand (D-NY) was considering offering an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would have imposed a moratorium on discharging gay and lesbian soldiers as part of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he would certainly support the amendment if Gillebrand chose to offer it.
Well it seems Gillebrand will not offer it after all. The reason, her office says, is that they just do not have the 60 votes in the Senate required to overcome a Republican filibuster. It would seem that President Obama will have to do some arm-twisting to get DADT repealed. Little wonder he is waiting until after the fight to push through health care reform legislation is over. He needs all his strength for that task.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
DADT Update
Posted by Dr. Strangelove at 11:18 PM
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6 comments:
Yes, I agree that the priority should be health care.
But damn! The Republicans can be counted on to stay unified for the sake of preserving an anti-gay policy? What does that say about the so called "moderate Republicans?"
They like wedge issues?
Or all that's left of their ideological coherence is bigotry.
The Republicans are an identity party. That identity is White Evangelicals.
DADT would be a distraction from health care right now. I think that's the problem. To get moderate Republicans on board with Obama, he needs to protect them from their base. To do this, he should not stake out positions in the "culture war" so strongly just yet.
LTG's probably right about the complexity of it. But that base still scares me - as it does everyone else on this blog.
Mmmm, love the smell of bigotry in the morning...
(and in seriousness, agreeing with everyone, again. This is starting to worry me ;-p)
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