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Dan Savage Puts It in (Shockingly SFW) Simple Terms

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On December 4, 2009

In Law, Personal, Politics, Society

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3KhZsMXw9I[/youtube]

He says all the right things.  And he does . . . nothing.

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10 Comments

  1. LFS

    Of course, its not just Obama. It is Democrats in general. Just look at the NY Senate.

  2. Robyn

    I certainly understand his frustration, but these aren’t the best examples of things that Obama can do as president.

    Isn’t it better for DADT to be repealed by Congress rather than an executive order from the CiC that goes against existing law? I think Rep. Frank is planning to include it in the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill.

    As for the DOMA brief, I didn’t go to law school, but I’ve always thought that the DOJ represents the US, not the occupant of the White House, and must argue on the side of existing law. The references to former cases in the brief were simply footnotes, not the main arguments for upholding DOMA. I didn’t agree with it, but I don’t read it as President Obama’s personal betrayal of gay rights. Am I way off base here? Because I’m honestly not sure how to think about this one.

  3. MB

    The effects of DADT can be halted immediately – by Obama’s order – while Congress gets around to addressing it. They’re called stop-loss orders, and given that the Obama Administration has used them to keep unwilling soldiers in the service (although that will supposedly end in 2011), you’d think they’d be willing to deploy it to permit soldiers who *want* to stay in place. He could end it tomorrow, completely within the law. He chooses not to.

    ~

    As to the brief, what that reflects is the near complete lack of substantive caring that the Admin has on the issue. Yes, it’s perfectly normal that DOJ would defend DOMA. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the Obama Admin left the very important matter of handling that issue to some hateful third tier asshole to handle on his own. The producing a situation where it is the opinion of the United States that permitting gay marriage is akin to incest and polygamy.

  4. Robyn

    Ah, thanks for the explanation. I guess I was grasping at any reason to give him the benefit of the doubt that these issues were more complicated than they seemed. I stand corrected.

  5. MB

    That’s the rub, really – he doesn’t *deserve* the benefit of the doubt that people are giving him. That’s what’s so frustrating. He garners so much benefit and goodwill with talking, but never actually gets around to earning it with action. And – I’m speculating – that’s his team’s calculation: he can benefit from the goodwill of the uninformed without paying any price for action. To me, that’s an ugly ugly cynicism.

  6. tx2vadem

    You’re on a roll lately. I’d go with Obama is a politician like any other. As I heard it in, I think, a Tuna 4th: “Politicians are like cats. They rub up against your leg until they get what they want; then they go PEE ON THE COUCH!”

  7. Robyn

    For what it’s worth, my benefit of the doubt giving is less about his pretty rhetoric and more about my personal dislike of the “but he’s the President!” argument. I hated the way the last administration stretched and abused the powers of the office. I realize I’m being naive, but I wanted to believe that he’s trying to fix these things the proper way – having these laws overturned by the courts or fixed by Congress. And I still think both of these will happen before the end of his term.

  8. CG

    Back to this topic for a moment. I happened to see this quote from a Harper’s interview (thanks to a rightwing blog, I use to comment on until I got banned)

    Obama, Nov 2006:

    “Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary,” he told me during an interview at his office on Capitol Hill this summer. “What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I’m not rendered politically impotent.”

    I think it’s relevant to my case, but you know, it’s still a judgement call.

  10. Warren

    CG, I think that “evolutionary, not revolutionary,” is part of the design of the authors of the Constitution. Revolutions tend to be rather bloody affairs, so the Founders established a Constitution that was neither immutable nor easily changed. They also established a separation of powers, while parliamentary systems swing back and forth as the ruling party in the legislature also controls the executive branch.

    Blogs on both the right and the left ban people who disagree with them. Unless they banned you for profanity, take it as a compliment on your debating prowess.

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