Asterisk

President Obama:

We waited with hope when you campaigned on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

We waited with confusion when your administration defended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

We waited with skepticism when in your State of the Union you called Congress to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

We waited with frustration after your Justice Department directly contradicted you on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

And now, as anonymous White House staffers and members of Congress tell us that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal will have to wait another year or two or three, we have one thing to say.

We aren’t waiting anymore.

You’re used to the Human Rights Campaign doing what you say, I know. To be honest, I don’t blame you for that, Mr. President. Someone once told me that we teach people how to treat us, and HRC has taught you that we’re willing to be led down the primrose path.

But yesterday you were faced with the truth: We want the civil rights guaranteed to all Americans, and we’re done waiting. As citizens we expect you to lead on this issue.

That’s why we’re “hollering” at you, by the way. As you know from the health care debate, this difficult vote won’t happen without your leadership.

Mr. President, my earnest and heartfelt hope is that you begin to understand that neither your script nor your political time line are important to us. Our concerns are greater than your politics. We want you to do the right thing because it’s the right thing.

Not when it’s safe; it’ll never be safe. Not when it’s easy; it’ll never be easy.

NOW.

Only when you’ve done that can we accept you as the trustworthy ally you’ve claimed to be. We don’t want to be your enemy, Mr. President, and we are eager for the day when we can stand with you again.

Yours in esteem and expectation,

Matthew D. Algren
Just some fag who wants you to care.

Thanks to Lt. Dan Choi and the good folks at GetEqual for kicking us back into gear. We owe you one.

Thanks to RealClearPolitics for the video. Make it embeddable next time and I won’t have to rip it.

Uh-oh. Looks like a reporter pissed off Old Man McCain again. I suppose we should be glad he didn’t call anybody a cunt this time.

Senator McCain’s latest tantrum came during an interview with the Arizona Star. While discussing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he acknowledges that “There are no nuances in [his] opinion” and says that can’t figure out why he would talk to gay servicemembers about the impact of the prejudicial law on military service.

I’m not kidding. He actually says those things.

But let’s get to the tantrum first.

McCain blew a gasket when the Arizona Star editor tried to make sense of McCain’s previously stated “personal opinion” business with Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen:

McCAIN: He said it was his personal opinion.

STAR: Well, he did. But he also appeared in uniform. And it’s a little hard to parse when the joint chiefs appear in front of the United States Senate committee and says “It’s my personal opinion that.”

McCAIN: What about when the commandant of the Marine Corps said he is opposed to it? What about when the chief of staff of the Army said we’ve got to go slow on this? What about when the chief of staff of the Air Force said I’m very worried about an abrupt change in policy and that we have to have a thorough review? What about all of those people?

STAR: Well maybe that was just their personal opinion.

McCAIN: No, no. It wasn’t their personal opinion. It was their professional opinion. It was Admiral Mullen’s personal opinion. All these other guys I just mentioned, that was their professional opinion.

STAR: I’m just saying when he appears in his uniform to speak, I don’t think most Americans get invited to give their personal opinions before the Armed Services Committee wearing their uniform and appearing as the head of the joint chiefs.

McCAIN: I guess all I can do is repeat myself. He said and emphasized that it was his personal opinion. Every other one of the service chiefs have said we need a thorough and complete review before we change the policy. And polls have shown that members of the military don’t want to change a policy because they think it’s working.

STAR: There’s also been a generational shift, I think, too, in terms of what younger members say and what …

McCAIN: There may have been, there may not have been. But we need a thorough and complete review. I mean, how many times do I have to give you my opinion?

If you want to have a debate about this issue, I’ll be glad to have a debate with you. I thought I came here to tell you my positions on the issues. I’m serious here. I would be glad to have an open and public debate with you on this issue. But I thought that I came here in order to tell you my positions on issues so that you can judge whether I should be re-elected or not or whatever opinions you may form.

And it went on from there.

You aren't fooling anybody with that comb over.

But that wasn’t McCain’s only moment of embarrassing absurdity in the interview. Here are some snippets with my witty commentary throughout. (More at the link.)

STAR: …I’m wondering if you’ve been approached by gay service members because you said that it’s been working effectively, it’s been working well. So I’m curious how do you come to that conclusion? Have you sought out gay service members, have you been approached by gay service members? How do you make that determination?

McCAIN: I make that determination by retention and recruitment is at an all-time high, the highest in the history of the all-volunteer force. I get that opinion because I visit with the troops all the time. I go to Iraq, I go to Afghanistan, I run into them everywhere. And of course I don’t seek out someone who is gay. Why should I? These are all men and women who are serving. Why should I, that would be nuts. I go up to men and women and I say thanks for serving. I say thank you for serving, you are great Americans, God bless you.

Yes, Senator, it would be nuts to talk to the people DADT has affected the most. What a ridiculous idea!

Quick note on military recruitment and retention: McCain is right that they’re pretty high right now. Two problems with his point, though: 1) Retention and recruitment are always higher during an economic recession, and we’re in a pretty big one, and 2) according to a study released January 2010 by the US Army War College, retention is still a problem even with cash incentives because the Armed Forces are targeting quantity of officers over quality of officers.

So really, recent success is in spite of DADT rather than because of it. Doing away with DADT could help retain a higher quality of officer (see: Maj. Margaret Witt, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach) instead of just filling slots like they are now.

But why let facts get in the way of the party line? Okay, back to it:

McCAIN: … by any objective view, our military is the most professional, best equipped, best trained, most highest (sic) quality that it’s ever been.

Let’s assume McCain’s statement is true. Wouldn’t the most professional military ever be able to handle honest lesbians and gay men in their ranks? I mean, seriously, I’d expect the most highest quality military to understand that who you’re attracted to has nothing to do with proficiency on the field of combat.

STAR: If those things are going well, could they be better if the policy was changed?

McCAIN: That’s why we need to review the policy and find out what the effect is on the military and their battle effectiveness. That’s why we need an extensive review and listen to the commandant of the Marine Corps who says it should not be repealed. Listen to the men and women in the field, listen to the families of those who are serving rather than fulfill a campaign promise.

Now the reason why the president declared this is because it was a campaign promise, not because our military is hurting, not because we’re having difficulties in the military.

Ooh, somebody’s still smarting from the whooping he got in 2008.

But hang on a second, I just noticed something. Back up at the first quote I pulled, McCain said that no way should he listen to people in the military. Now he says it’s essential to hear from…

Oh, wait a minute. I get it. McCain wants to listen to the straight soldiers but not the gay ones.

Nice.

He didn’t. Quite the opposite, actually.

In sworn testimony a few weeks ago, Marine Corps General John J. Sheehan (ret.) told Congress that the gays serving openly in the Dutch Army led to the Srebrenica Genocide in 1995.

Over the next few days, just about every Dutch official justifiably raised hell over Gen. Sheehan’s charge. And now, General Sheehan is apologizing. At least he says he is.

Here’s the letter he sent to Dutch General Henk van der Breeman (ret.), who Sheehan gave as the source for his allegations.

Using the word 'sorry' doesn't make it an apology.

So to make this perfectly clear, when Gen. Sheehan said that the allowing gays to serve in the Dutch military caused the largest massacre in Europe since World War II, what he really meant was that allowing gays to serve in the Dutch military caused all the good soldiers to quit the military, which caused the largest massacre in Europe since World War II.

See the difference? No?

Gen. Sheehan is still blaming gays for genocide. His only apology is for not making it clearer that he also thinks the Dutch government is to blame. His message to Congress is that if they let gays serve openly, any soldier being killed in combat in the future will be their fault, because clearly you can trace the death back to the repeal of DADT. And you know what we do when someone kills a US soldier…

Come to think of it, Gen. Sheehan’s comments are more of a threat than a message, don’t you think?

In January, we were shocked by video of Ex-Gay Industry Leader Scott Lively telling a Ugandan audience that gays were to blame for the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. You might remember that Lively has also published a book claiming that gays were behind the Jewish Holocaust. It was pretty outrageous, but at least he was alone in baselessly blaming a minority group for genocide.

Well, no more. Last Thursday, Mr. Lively got some company.

In sworn testimony on a potential Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, Marine Corps General John J. Sheehan (ret.) told the US Congress that gays are to blame for 1995′s Srebrenica Genocide during the Bosnian War.

Rachel Maddow was on top of the story on her show that night.

Senator Carl Levin wasted no time challenging Gen. Sheehan’s lies, but the damage was already done. Dutch officials, including Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, immediately expressed stunned outrage at Gen. Sheehan’s claims.

Friday night, Maddow gave an update on the fallout.

Germany. Rwanda. Now Bosnia.

Gosh, I wonder where we’ll strike next.

If you turned off the internet once Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo were arrested, boy did you miss some major news.

Once they were done at the White House, Get Equal moved to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s offices on Capitol Hill and in San Fransisco. There they refused to leave until Speaker Pelosi committed to a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been languishing in Congress for…well, years.

No identities yet; will update when I get them

After several tense hours, four protesters at Pelosi’s office on the Hill were arrested and taken, coincidentally, to the same facility that Choi and Pietrangelo are being held in. Just before midnight, the ENDA 4 were released without bail.

Incidentally, Choi and Pietrangelo are being held without bail or contact to the outside world until they appear in court tomorrow.

Speaker Pelosi continues to stall on ENDA.