CONFIRMED: Obama Won't Push DADT Repeal in 2010
April 24, 2010
The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld finally got Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs to confirm what we’ve known for several months.
Despite indications (not promises, just indications) to the contrary, President Obama will not push Congress to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell until after the Pentagon’s study on how it would enact repeal is finished. That study is not due until after mid-term elections this November, and it’s important to note that nobody expects the Democratic majority to hold. Some are even predicting that Republicans will take over the majority in the House.
The President isn’t interested in DADT repeal until December 1, 2010 at the very earliest, and the possibility of DADT repeal being debated, submitted, and voted on in both the House and Senate in the six weeks between December 1 and the start of the new session in January is exactly nil.
All of this despite the fact that congressional sources indicate that we have the votes in the House and are only a few away in the Senate. All of this despite the fact that according to every scientific poll taken in the last year, a ridiculous majority of Americans across most segments of the population (including conservatives) think DADT should be repealed. All of this despite the obvious fact that the most likely shot at repeal comes with its inclusion in the defense authorization bill to be released in May.
The bottom line is that President Obama doesn’t want DADT repeal to be an issue in this year’s congressional elections, and that in 2012′s presidential election, DADT is more valuable to him intact than it is repealed. Campaigns in somewhat conservative districts won’t be bothered with having voted for LGBT rights this year, improving the Democrats’ chances this November.
Then he begins his 2012 presidential campaign, in which he points at the Republicans who kept DADT repeal from happening in 2011-2012, having mitigated 2010′s conservative district problem with the national scope. He’ll be able to agree with most Americans that DADT should be repealed, making it either a non-issue or a positive issue in his campaign. He gets the gay vote with the same strategy he used in 2008. If he gets reelected, he can get to DADT sometime in his second term or not, depending on the makeup of Congress in 2013.
It’s a cynical strategy to be sure, but it’s the one I think he’s going with.
And he wonders why we’re hollerin’. (And will continue hollerin’. We aren’t going down without a fight.)
