John McCain, you’re a doddering, pandering old fool. You’ve never met a position you couldn’t change. Here are just a few of the literally dozens of views you have re-adapted to your politically precarious place and time: the Bush tax cuts, warrantless wiretaps, closing Gitmo, waterboarding, troop increases in Afghanistan, Roe v. Wade, privatizing Social Security, the estate tax, gay marriage, gay adoption, Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, all aspects of immigration policy, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, affirmative action, funding No Child Left Behind, Yucca Mountain, coastal drilling, national auto emissions standards, ethanol — the list goes on and on.
And as I wrote last month, you even backtracked on the landmark McCain–Feingold campaign finance reform act, and not once, but twice. You dropped away from it in 2006, when it was time to defend it from legal challenges. You abandoned it entirely just last month, Maverick, when you broke your own law!
Rachel Maddow reminds us this morning of your latest genetic mutation.
McCain mints new reason for clinging to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
The Arizona Republican has gone from supporting a repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay troops to waiting for the Pentagon study on it next month to, now, saying the study was the wrong kind,
she writes. Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly lays it out:
A couple of months ago, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) led the charge to kill “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, he specifically relied on a Pentagon survey on the issue. How, McCain said, could Congress possibly act before lawmakers know the results? Don’t senators care what active-duty and reserve troops, as well as 150,000 family members, have to say?
Well, we now have a pretty good sense what the survey results show: most of the men and women in uniform are fine with ending DADT. By one account, more that 70% of respondents to the Pentagon survey said the effect of repealing the existing policy would be positive, mixed, or nonexistent.
Noting the attitudes of those in the military, the Washington Post editorial board said today, “The last possible rationale for maintaining the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy appears to have been pulverized.”
Enter you, senator, on yesterday’s Meet The Press (with the reliably spineless David Gregory).
Continues Benen:
We can’t repeal DADT until the Secretary of Defense says it’s a good idea. Oh, he does?
Well then we can’t repeal DADT until the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff says it’s a good idea. Oh, he’s on board, too?
Well then we can’t repeal DADT until we’ve surveyed servicemen and women, asking their opinion on the policy. They’re fine with repeal, too?
Well then we can’t repeal DADT until we’ve studied the survey results for months.
Whether McCain realizes how foolish he looks or not, this is transparently ridiculous. The senator would be better off dropping the incoherent pretense and simply acknowledge what’s plainly true: he doesn’t want gay servicemembers, and no amount of evidence will change his mind.
Hey, bub, er senator, your wife got it right — that is, before you also managed to change her position:
“Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future.”
“They can’t serve our country openly.”
“Our government treats the LGBT community like second-class citizens. Why shouldn’t they?”
Cindy McCain means they as in homophobic bullies. As in you, John McCain.
