There’s no shortage of commentary and analysis about the repeal of DADT, so I’ll just add a brief thought.
A number of people showed amazing, active leadership to get this done. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi and Patrick Murphy in the House, Dan Choi and all the folks at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen; even Lady Gaga deserves a tip of the hat.
But I want to say a word for a different kind of leadership, the kind that takes place out of the limelight. Barack Obama, in particular, gave us several measured and tailored statements of support, none of them exhibiting the kind of inspiring rhetoric that will live on in the history of political oratory. He has taken no end of criticism for failing to live up to his self-description as our “fierce advocate.”
But as the Rolling Stones observed, you may not always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. What we should have learned from Bill Clinton’s spectacular failure on this issue is that a large component of vitriolic unfairness is built into it, and can and will be exploited easily enough. When Clinton promised he would resolve the problem of gays in the military with the stroke of a pen, he gave Sam Nunn an engraved invitation to visit those infamous submarine bunks, and paved the way for Republicans to invoke the most fearsome set of showers since World War II.
This is the kind of political problem that can best be solved more indirectly. There was no doubt about the public support for repeal, and while there was concern about how the troops would view it, that turned out to be based on the same wishful thinking by the right as everything else in the area of gay equality. But even in the face of genuine popular support, the equally genuine, gut-level ugliness of the minority also has to be negotiated.
That is Obama’s real triumph, and he proved to be quite right about how you approach the problem. Rather than offer up the moral leadership of the presidency as a target, and risk yet another failure, he allowed the focus of the animosity to diffuse, letting the political poison seep out in less toxic doses.
That’s not the kind of celebrity leadership that makes a president a short-term hero to a constituency group, and leaves nothing but moral victories in its wake – if a president is lucky enough to get even one of those. It’s a brand of political leadership that is antithetical to our desire for immediate gratification, but is better for our long-term health. Andrew Sullivan has called this Obama’s Long Game, and that gets it exactly right.
Harry Reid was complicit in this strategy to get us what we needed, not merely what we wanted. Reid doesn’t have the oratorical gifts Obama has, but he doesn’t need them. There are times when I wish Reid could give a speech with the conviction that Newt Gingrich had. But Reid’s low blood-pressure style is what allows him to get the results that Gingrich could only promise in his failed House leadership.
There are a lot of different styles of politics, and despite what the media and the spokespeople would like us to believe, there is an enormous amount of politics that takes place quietly, thoughtfully and without fanfare, until the fanfare is actually warranted. That is how the embarrassment of DADT was ultimately removed from the law.
May its slander rest in peace.
15 Comments for “R.I.P. DADT (1993-2010)”
posted by Tom on
Dead right, David. President Obama handled DADT repeal deftly, carefully balancing political reality with military necessity. In the end, it worked.
posted by Jorge on
Interesting, but I disagree.
President Obama has waded into the front lines on a long list of policy and cultural fights, and gotten “shellacked” on them. So I don’t see any reason to believe that his “long game” is accident rather than design. I do agree that getting Gates and Mullen on board is exactly what was needed.
BTW, shouldn’t it be something more like RIP DADT (1993-2011)? Or would it be ’94?
posted by Jared on
Well, David Link’s view of the process is certainly at odds with Stephen Miller’s, as in the prior post’s “Furthermore” section, which describes how the Democrats set up the repeal to fail until the strategy began to backfire. Just wondering if David thinks that Miller’s position is without merit, and if so why?
posted by David Link on
Jorge, you’re right about the dates — I thought I’d edited the change (1993-2010) into the title, but apparently that’s a part of the site whose editing rules I’m not up to.
As for Jared, I haven’t talked with Stephen about how his views and mine differ, and so I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) say his position is without merit. Some disagreements include merits on both sides.
posted by Mike on
“… and paved the way for Republicans to invoke the most fearsome set of showers since World War II.”
Extremely tasteless joke.
posted by B-Rob on
Disagree. It was pretty clever, noting the absurdity of wandering gangs of crazed gay soldiers ogling straight soldiers while they shower.
posted by Throbert McGee on
But likening this scenario to the cyanide gassing of Jews and Gypsies is maybe not in the best of taste.
(And the likelihood that the real Nazi gas chambers were often crude affairs done with diesel exhaust piped in through windows — and that the stories of Zyklon B pouring out of elaborately constructed fake shower fixtures may, therefore, be totally apocryphal — doesn’t diminish the joke’s tastelessness.)
posted by Jimmy on
I took David’s shower reference to be in the context of the US military (since that is what is relevant), integration, and the concerns about blacks and whites using the same facilities, showering together.
Making the connection to concentration camp showers is a bit gratuitous.
posted by Throbert McGee on
David Link wrote “the most fearsome set of showers since World War II.”
Racial desegregation of the military was a post-WWII development — blacks who served during the war almost invariably trained and served in all-black units.
Ergo, Link could NOT have been talking about the “fearsome” scenario of blacks and whites showering together in the barracks, since facilities such as barracks and their showers were still thoroughly segregated during WWII.
posted by Throbert McGee on
By the way, I wasn’t personally offended by the joke — I’ve been a South Park fan from day one, and have been a connoisseur of morbid gallows humor for much longer than that, so I don’t see “tasteless” and “offensive” as interchangeable synonyms.
But I did agree with Mike’s observation that the joke was intrinsically in poor taste.
posted by Jorge on
Oh, I get it.
Tasteless.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Strictly speaking, it should be R.I.P. DADT (1993-201?), since the bill doesn’t contain any deadline for the President, Sec. of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to put their signatures on that “written confirmation” required for repeal to become effective.
So in theory, either the President or the top brass could stall indefinitely on “confirming” that the military is prepared to implement the repeal. (Postponing the confirmation in this way would not cause the bill to expire; it would just remain perpetually pending — and DADT would remain in effect.)
And it’s not far-fetched to argue that Obama, for example, will sign the Congressional repeal bill within the next few days, yet prefer to wait until Dec 2012 — when he’ll be either a lame duck or re-elected — before co-signing the “written confirmation” mandated in the bill.
Or, it might be the Joint Chiefs, and not Obama, who find excuses to drag their feet on confirming the repeal . But in either case, USC Title 10, §654 could remain in force for several more years.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Latin geeks take note: even if it actually takes several years for the repeal to become effective, the “R.I.P.” is still appropriate — the verb requiescat in Requiescat In Pace is a subjunctive present form, so it can refer to that which is contrary to fact or not YET true.
In other words, it can mean “May it (eventually, someday) rest in peace,” however far off that day turns out to be!
posted by BobN on
the verb requiescat in Requiescat In Pace is a subjunctive present form, so it can refer to that which is contrary to fact or not YET true.
It can but it doesn’t. The form is subjunctive. The mood is hortatory (after the Horta from Star Trek, of course, since we’re geeking out…)
posted by Jorge on
I am an English geek, not a Latin geek.