C-Span’s livestream is no longer visible here. But we watched it and now we are going to tell you what happened at the Big DADT Show Today. OpenLeft live blogged the hearings and you should go read the whole thing. I’ve included my notes and their live-blog below, but mostly their live blog because I slept through my alarm this morning.
John McCain, 9:16 AM:
“This capable force of ours could repeal DADT if asked to… what I want to know is not can our Armed Forces repeal this law but whether they should. Unfortunately, that’s not the focus of this study… this is a question that must be answered by Congress with proper consideration of the issue… the DOD has had 10 months to complete this report. Together they contain over 1,000 pages of data and analysis. We received it 36 hours ago and are still carefully analyzing it. What I can saw now is that in addition to my concerns over what questions were not asked, I’m troubled by the fact that this report represents only 28% of the military force. I find that hard to view that as a fully representative sample set… what appears clear is that the survey and anecdotal data… do not lead to a firm conclusion.”
John McCain, 9:22 AM:
“As this debate continues, I hope people would put aside their political agendas.”
Admiral Mullen, 9:35 AM:
“What was my personal opinion is now my professional opinion. Unit cohesion will not suffer, families will not encourage their loved ones to leave the service. I don’t discount for a moment the results of the survey… whatever risk there is, it is thoroughly mitigated by the [recommendations] in this study. These are the things I know for a fact, these are the things the study tells us. Now let me tel you what I believe. Our troops are ready for this. Most are serving or have served alongside gays and lesbians.”
“Some may want separate shower facilities… some may even quit the service. We’ll deal with that. But history tells us most will put aside personal proclivities for themselves and for each other… there’s a common bond against threat of the enemy.”
John McCain, 9:45 AM:
John McCain, 10:04 AM:
McCain: “12.6% of the overall military force said they’ll leave earlier than planned [if DADT is repealed]. Overall numbers- he estimates 265K troops to leave. You think that’s a good idea when we’re fighting two wars?”
Gates: Yes, and our military allies had large numbers who said they would leave, and in the end, those numbers were far smaller than what surveys indicated. While there are concerns you’ll probably hear tomorrow about special ops forces where there are limited numbers of people, I don’t think any of us think the numbers would be anything like what the survey suggests, based on experience. Also, they can’t just up and leave. They have enlistment contracts.
I believe this is when McCain shared this lovely tidbit, regarding our inalienable right to decide who we want to discriminate against:
“We send these young people in to combat, we think they’re mature enough to fight and die, I think they’re mature enough to decide who they want to serve with … I speak from personal experience.”
10: 11 AM
John McCain wants to know if anyone has been held responsible for Wikileaks. Idk. This man is just a sack of bones and rotting brain at this point.
10: 15 AM – Senator Joseph Lieberman says:
“This country was defined not by its borders, but by its values… we’re all endowed by G-d to these rights… to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…. in our time one of the transitions that is occurring that it’s just wrong and un-American to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation.”
10: 42 AM
Senator Ben Nelson: Doesn’t the current system undermine values of integrity?
Mullen: Yes, it does.=
12: 21 AM:
Sen. Levin responds to allegations that he’s just there to follow through on Obama’s campaign promise. He says he’s here because of a law passed in 1993 that needs to be changed and because there are gays and lesbians serving/dying for our country and we need to honor the service and patriotism. That’s why he’s here, not because of a campaign promise.
Only 15% of the GLBT soldiers said they’d actually want to be OUT if DADT was repealed, saying things like, “We’re in the military, that stuff isn’t supposed to be done during duty hours regardless of whether you’re gay or straight.” If DADT is repealed, the Military Code of Conduct will apply to gay and straight members so WHATS THE BIG DEAL?
Lieberman closes with:
“The American people have lost confidence in some of the great institutions of our society… probably the one central institution that Americans still have faith in is the military… it’s not who you are, but what you do. And I think DADT is a stain on the honor of the U.S. Military.”
12: 45 PM:
John McCain wants to talk about WikiLeaks again.
I watched this earlier, and was literally seething at my desk.
I can’t deal with this mccain level of stupidity. Yes its a new type of stupid.
Agreed
I think there should be a new scale of crazy. Something like
Ferdinand Marcos-Sarah Palin-Christine O’Donnell-John Boehner-Stalin-John McCain
I was watching this earlier and all I could think was “Dear God, why is McCain’s opinion still considered valid?” I could barely even follow his train of thought, even when he wasn’t randomly bringing up Wiki Leaks stuff.
Why do they keep letting McCain speak? He lowers the IQ of Washington and makes my heart hurt.
Obviously, my heart should be Washington’s first priority. = P
that picture of Dragocain is amazing.
actually, that picture scared the shit out of me. i was looking at it on my phone, and all of a sudden i got a close up of mccain’s eyes. THE HORRROOOOR
Isn’t McCain supposed to be dead by now? He’s like a million years old…
For some reason this reminds me of the time john mcain ca me to my high school to dedicate our new football stadium to a dead soldier from our school. I wonder if he still would’ve come if the soldier dude was gay. he gave a ginormous speech before kick off which was totally boring and I almost fell asleep but I was standing at attention in my rotc uniform. John mcain gives boring speeches and is uglier in person people. Oh we lost that game to our rivals who sucked. See john mcain, even high schoolers don’t care what you have to say. Now that I’m in the military I despise him even more. Can’t believe I almost shook his hand.
The fact that McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate casts serious doubts on this man’s intelligence and sanity.
john mccain can suck my cock.
28%? ONLY 28%?! THAT IS ALMOST A THIRD! YOU CANNOT GET A BETTER SAMPLE SIZE THAN THAT IN A SOCIAL SURVEY!
I apologize for the caps lock. I just…so much rage right now. If only this were the stupidest thing McCain said tonight. Sometimes I hate being an Arizona voter.
No shit, Karissa. Spot on.
I mean, I generally think this is true for pretty much all politicians in the upper levels of government, but McCain right now is especially demonstrating my suspicions.
It’s a fucking ego thing to him.
The guy at one point seems to have a semblence of sorts of some fucking integrity. For a period of time he had the appearance of being one of the key moderates that kept Republicans in the Senate from going completely whacho right some if not all of the time.
However, coming across as a fairly reasonable moderate cost him the primaries in 2000 and he was handed a humiliating loss by fucking GWB’s evil empire.
Then he turns around and gets his ass handed to him again by of all things, a black dude roughly half his age…I’m sure a lily white rich guy of McCain’s generation really doesn’t stomach losing out to a youthful minority in a game of Scrabble, let alone a goddamn presidential election.
Now he’s all bitter and angry and it really seems like his goal anymore is to just take the joy out of life for fucking everyone.
Just, why is he still around, and who decided he was allowed to talk?
I wonder if he wasn’t 507 and was still actively serving in the military, whether or not he’d prefer to die or be saved by a gay soldier.
I think melerwin summed up my feelings perfectly, but I did want to add that I appreciated the typing out of “G-d” for Lieberman’s statement. It made me happy to see. Yes I am going to focus on that one tiny shred of happiness because I can’t possibly focus on the ridiculousness of everything else.