At Netroots Nation, Blogger Challenges Bill Clinton On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
At Netroots Nation, Blogger Challenges Bill Clinton On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
At the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh yesterday, former President Bill Clinton delivered the opening day’s keynote address. In his speech, Clinton declared that it is “imperative for the Democrats to pass a health care bill now,” telling the bloggers and activists that “the president needs your help and the cause needs your help.”
About 20 minutes into his speech, however, Clinton was interrupted by blogger Lane Hudson, who asked about the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that Clinton implemented. “Hey, you ought to go to one of those congressional health care meetings,” Clinton joked before defending his actions as president and claiming that “nobody regrets how this was implemented anymore than I do”:
CLINTON: I hated what happened. I regret it but I didn’t have, I didn’t think at the time, any choice if I wanted any progress to be made at all. Look, I think it’s ridiculous. Can you believe they spent, whatever they spent, $150,000 to get rid of a valued Arabic speaker recently? You know, the thing that changed me forever on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was when I learned that 130 gay service people were allowed to serve and risk their lives in the first Gulf War and all their commanders knew they were gay, but they let them go out there and risk their lives because they needed them. Then as soon as the first Gulf War was over, they kicked them out. That’s all I needed to know. That’s all anybody needs to know that this policy should be changed.
Watch it:
At the Huffington Post, Hudson wrote that he interrupted the speech because “it became clear there would be no questions,” so when President Clinton said that “We need an honest, principled debate,” he stood and asked his question. Hudson said he was satisfied with Clinton’s answer on DADT, writing that “he made the strongest objection to DADT he has ever made to the best of my knowledge.”
The Obama White House has committed to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but is waiting to see “congressional action” first. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) and Sen. Kristian Gillibrand (D-NY) are taking the lead on repealing the provision in Congress.
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Obama cannot repeal DADT without either Congressional action, or pulling a Dubya and ruling like a dictator.
I’m against banning gays from the military, but I’m also against Presidents acting like dictators.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:54 amSo, I guess down-right fakey revisionism isn’t limited to the Bushrviki?
August 14th, 2009 at 11:57 amEven though I like the question and I like the answer that Clinton gave, I am not too comfortable with the lack of civility demonstrated by standing up in the middle of a speech and interrupting.
After all, we’re not Republicans, are we?
August 14th, 2009 at 11:58 amRepeal it. It is wrong and unfair, right along with a waste of valuable resources.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:00 pmI’m proud of my congressman, Murphy, for his position on DADT, but he’s still a Blue Dog who signed the Pelosi letter.
And I still love Bill Clinton! Too bad he could only serve two terms.
PEACE
August 14th, 2009 at 12:00 pmThank you for that background, President Clinton.
I agree with RantingTommy, I don’t like president acting like dictators, but it would do a lot of good to see some progress toward getting rid of DADT.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:00 pmI agree with Raynman. If we are going to complain about people on the right being obnoxious, then we can’t be obnoxious overselves.
There seems to be an underlying view on both sides that their side MUST BE HEARD. There is a time to step back and be civil, even with speakers that we might not agree with. Real life is not like blog comments. You don’t get to stop half way through and blurt out your thoughts.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:01 pm“interrupted” a SPEECH???
that’s rather crass…
i could see a few instances, but this doesn’t sound like one…
August 14th, 2009 at 12:03 pmI believe that Clinton is speaking honestly about how this went down. It does make sense, and we need to remember that for the duration of Clinton’s presidency he had to deal with majority Republican branches of Congress with the likes of DeLay and Gingrich to contend with.
I also believe that what he attributed to Gen. Powell is accurate. Powell has always seemed like a fish out of water within the confines of the Republican party.
It is time to repeal to DADT. It makes no sense that gay service members with critical skills MOSs are tossed out while convicted felons, supremacists and gang bangers are given waivers to enlist. The latter groups are more destructive to unit cohesiveness and mission readiness than are gay people who mind their own business and serve proudly.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pmHudson wrote that he interrupted the speech because “it became clear there would be no questions,”
IT WAS A SPEECH.
left or right, no excuse for bad manners.
and clinton said nothing new.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pmOf all the thinks needing attention just now, where does this rate?
August 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pmOT – just heard about the ross/abc story on ed schultz,
so i google for it, and this is what i get:
Fear for Obama’s Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash
ABC News – Brian Ross, Anna Schecter – ?5 hours ago?
Experts who track hate groups across the US are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric …
ABC Tries to Tie Health Care Town Hall Protesters to Hate Groups
NewsBusters – Matthew Balan – ?11 minutes ago
wawawaaah!
August 14th, 2009 at 12:12 pmthey’re persecuting us!
ken melvin says:
Of all the thinks needing attention just now, where does this rate?
August 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Hmmmm, let me think…
There are Americans in this country without the same civil rights I have, which places their very livelihood at risk by ruining whole careers, and wastes taxpayer money at an alarming rate.
I think it rates pretty damned high.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:14 pmkaty,
I just read that Squeaky Fromme has been released from prison. Yikes!
August 14th, 2009 at 12:15 pmWith DADT being looked into as being repealed, I’m going to be a little more concern with how gays will be treated in the military ranks once DADT is finally repealed. I defiantly see a spike in ACLU and Human Rights, filings?
August 14th, 2009 at 12:24 pmThe guy was being rude. Everyone knew it was a speech, and he was heckling, plain and simple. But, with Clinton being the favorite whipping boy of some bloggers, I’m sure the guy is proud of it.
In the end, I thought it was cool that Clinton picked up the issue and explained it, but it shouldn’t have been started by someone being rude.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:31 pmRantingTommy, I appreciate that point. Nobody wants a dictator.
But the Constitution is almost intentionally wobbly when it comes to the oversight of the military and the Commander in Chief by Congress. Congress has some pull, but the CiC can do nearly anything he wants with the soldiers.
That includes reinstating them to active service with no loss of benefits, etc, by means of a military pardon, if their only ‘crime’ is being and declaring themselves to be gay.
So Obama has all the power in this situation, but he’s not Doing The Right Thing, gay-wise. Maybe he’d better have a screening of Spike Lee’s most excellent film in the White House basement theater, just for a reminder.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pmTheRealFrank: Clinton is the MASTER of handling hecklers. He has NO PROBLEM with them, he practically WELCOMES the chance to counter-argue.
He is the best President of my lifetime, flaws and all. All you have to do is compare him and his terms to ANY OTHER PRESIDENT since FDR…no matter how much you may dislike him, we made more progress under him than any other. And he did the best he could with what he had to work with–the beginnings of the Neocon Nutjobs in Congress and Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr searching Hillary’s underwear drawers–literally.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pmZooey sez:
I think it rates pretty damned high.
I do, too. I’m getting sick to death of the Conventional Wisdom being that Obama’s numbers are ‘tanking’ because he’s TOO LIBERAL. That is a g*d*mned f**king lie if I ever heard one.
His numbers are lower now because his BASE is pissed off. That would be me. And not about EVERYTHING he’s done, of course, but about a good 30% or so.
Make him Do The Right Thing!
August 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pmbzb says: With DADT being looked into as being repealed, I’m going to be a little more concern with how gays will be treated in the military ranks once DADT is finally repealed. I defiantly see a spike in ACLU and Human Rights, filings?
Such a spike as you suspect might occur would be consistent with the fact that the repeal of DADT would finally give gays recourse in the event of harassment or discrimination.
BUT there’s not likely to be an retroactive rights applied, so no suits based on past incidents would arise. .
The British military got rid of their DADT a few years ago ( 2000 I think?) and they haven’t had any increase in anything except the acceptance of gays.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pmyea, i heard about that, zooey…
found this passage, thought it particularly relevant today:
[President] Ford was walking to the California State Capitol from his hotel when Fromme pushed through the crowd, drew the pistol from a holster on her thigh and pointed it at the president as he shook hands with well-wishers. She was restrained by Secret Service agents who wrested the gun away from her and led the president to safety.
tell me why that idiot who thinks “It is time to water the tree of liberty” was allowed to remain on that street corner…
August 14th, 2009 at 12:52 pmWHAT THE HELL IS BILL CLINTON DOING AT A PROGRESSIVE CONFERENCE?!?!?!
the organizers are just as clueless as the teabaggers
August 14th, 2009 at 12:57 pmi thought it was great that clinton told this rude dude,
“the other guys would love to have ya.”
ha!
August 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pmI hear people talk about “the President just has to do an EO to end DADT,” to which I usually ask, “and replace it with what?” It wasn’t DADT that contained the ban; it just meant DoD wasn’t actively looking for these people anymore. As long as DoD didn’t know you were gay, you could go right on serving all the way to retirement or the end of your hitch. Of course, if they caught you demonstrating the fact in some way, or if you came out, you were still toast. You have to make sure DADT is replaced with an outright removal of the ban on gays in the military.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:59 pm#24 – Steaming Pile says:
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“It wasn’t DADT that contained the ban; it just meant DoD wasn’t actively looking for these people anymore. As long as DoD didn’t know you were gay, you could go right on serving all the way to retirement or the end of your hitch.”
August 14th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Actually, if you were accused by someone else in the military, they’d investigate in a heartbeat. A service member friend of mine, who is straight, was investigated because he mentioned that he was friends with a gay guy. Turns out the one who accused him was upset because one time he got drunk and woke up in another guys bed the next morning.
It’s amusing that the only people who have a problem with gays serving openly are the homophobes and the people who are too insecure with their own sexuality. Every other mature service member has no problem serving with open gays!
August 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm#1 – RantingTommy says:
————————————————————
“I’m against banning gays from the military, but I’m also against Presidents acting like dictators.”
August 14th, 2009 at 11:54 am
They should start legislation named “Equal Rights for All American Service Members”. When the regressives vote against it, they can be exposed as supporting “special rights” for some Americans.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:36 pmTP posters have previously posted numbers that suggest if DADT were lifted, about 4,000 homosexual enlistments would be had. Other posters have posted the number that about 4,000 heterosexual enlistments would not be had because of the military openly accepting homosexuals into the service.
bit notes here that the net gain is zero.
OTOH, openly accepting homosexuals will cause a large number of new administrative issues.
For example:
Is there a homosexual behavior toward heterosexuals that approach sexual harrassment?
If two same-same gender people are openly living together in government barracks-dormitories, will this be treated the same as a heterosexual couple having sex in the barracks?
Will one wing of the barracks become the turf of a “gay mafia?”
Will homosexual leadership discriminate against heterosexual service members?
Will a service member – homo- or hetero- – be able to claim a HIV, and AIDS, infection as a service related disability?
Will a service member – homo- or hetero- – be able to claim that they have their sexual orientation changed against their will? This is important because if a heterosexual service member claims that his sexual orientation was changed because of his close, forced ( think homosexual gang rape for instance ) association with homosexuals, then would a homosexual service member be able to claims that their orientation was changed against their will? (dbadass’s famous remark about finding reparative therapy to change a hetero- to a homo -)
Removing DADT would be an administrative nightmare.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:04 pmbitbutt is once again proving exactly how ignorant a so-called christian can be.
Get back under your drippy piss-soaked bed, you fool.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:07 pmGod dammit, you’re so f ucking stupid, bitbutt, I wish I could vote you down again.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pmAs you might want to note Zooey, there’s a long way between the implementation of a policy – removing DADT – and making it work perfectly.
Neither WJC or any TPers desire to remove the DADT policy means that that removal will benefit the military services or all the service members.
Women in the military are still harassed and abused. Is there any reason to think that allowing openly homosexual service members will be without problems?
August 14th, 2009 at 2:22 pmI see how it is. It won’t be perfect, and morons like bitbutt are homophobic, so let’s not do anything about the fact that gay Americans don’t have the same civil rights as everyone else.
Please don’t pretend that you care about the harassment of women or gays in the military — because you don’t.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:45 pmI don’t think most people understand “don’t ask, don’t tell”. I was in the Air Force before and after it was implemented. Before DADT, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) would routinely investigate service members (mostly women) it suspected of being gay. They would question not only the people they suspected of being gay, but their friends and coworkers.
It was ridiculous.
When DADT went into effect, they couldn’t launch these stupid investigations anymore. They couldn’t ASK service members if they were gay. It made a huge difference.
Even under DADT, being gay is still forbidden in the military. That wont change until congress changes the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The President cannot do it on their own.
August 14th, 2009 at 3:10 pmbitblt says:
TP posters have previously posted numbers that suggest if DADT were lifted, about 4,000 homosexual enlistments would be had. Other posters have posted the number that about 4,000 heterosexual enlistments would not be had because of the military openly accepting homosexuals into the service.
bit notes here that the net gain is zero.
OTOH, openly accepting homosexuals will cause a large number of new administrative issues
They’ll have to adjust, blt. The homophobes will have to adjust like the bigots had to adjust when the military was integrated 60 years ago. And your list of “administrative issues” is merely a lot of words for “I’m a homophobe”, which we already knew.
Dismissed.
August 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm#27 – bitblt says:
——————————————————–
“OTOH, openly accepting homosexuals will cause a large number of new administrative issues.
For example:
Is there a homosexual behavior toward heterosexuals that approach sexual harrassment?”
This policy is already in place: any un-wanted sexual approach is un-lawful and will be punished as such. Straw-man argument #1 refuted.
“If two same-same gender people are openly living together in government barracks-dormitories, will this be treated the same as a heterosexual couple having sex in the barracks?”
Question irrelevant. The policy of opposite-sex couples living in on-base housing is that as long as it’s behind closed doors, it’s a non-issue. Same would go for same-sex couples living in on-base housing. Straw man argument #2 refuted.
Will one wing of the barracks become the turf of a “gay mafia?”
This will happen just as often as a “straight mafia” claims turf in a barracks currently in the military: not at all. Straw man argument #3 refuted.
“Will homosexual leadership discriminate against heterosexual service members?”
Discrimination is not allowed in the service, and is covered successfully by existing laws. Currently, heterosexuals DO discriminate against gay service members, simply because of DADT. If you want to eliminate discrimination, eliminate DADT and allow openly gay service members to serve. Straw man argument #4 refuted.
“Will a service member – homo- or hetero- – be able to claim a HIV, and AIDS, infection as a service related disability?”
HIV is no longer considered grounds for dismissal, ever since HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Treatment) became available in the 90s. HIV disability is at about 5% disability, so it cannot by itself be grounds for disability discharge. Straw man argument #5 refuted.
“Will a service member – homo- or hetero- – be able to claim that they have their sexual orientation changed against their will?”
Well, I guess it all depends on how drunk they were when they decided to “try it out”. I cannot tell you the number of “straight” service members who wanted to go out “drinking” with me when they heard about me being gay. Straw man argument #6 refuted.
“Removing DADT would be an administrative nightmare.”
Nope, it won’t. All your specious arguments are already covered by existing policies, rules and laws. The only one you haven’t brought up that might have to be considered:
August 14th, 2009 at 3:46 pmWhat if a couple from a state that allows same-sex marriage moves to a base in a state that doesn’t allow same-sex marriage? Will they be allowed on-base housing?
Democrat Soldier…I think I fell in love with you after reading the first half your your post refuting bitblt. ;)
Seriously…it was brilliant. I served under DADT in the 90’s in the submarine force.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:27 pm#35 – sfmatt09 says:
Thanks! If I wasn’t already partnered. . . . ;-)
I served at the Pentagon from 86-90. Got out before DADT, and had to really think before I turned down an offer for West Point, and eventually decided against re-enlistment. If I was in when they passed DADT, I would have stayed in for my 20 years, and probably done another 10.
August 14th, 2009 at 5:27 pmOh geez, I always stumble in at the most awkward moments… :D
August 14th, 2009 at 5:46 pmOh man, does Bill look old in this clip . . .
August 14th, 2009 at 8:41 pmLane Hudson is part of FireDogLake:
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/14/why-i-interrupted-bill-clintons-speech-at-netroots-nation/
Just thought I’d share! :-)
August 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pmAugust 15th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
mirc,mirc indir,chat,chat odalari,sohbet
August 15th, 2009 at 4:40 pmchat,chat odalari,sohbet,sohbet odalari,mirc
August 15th, 2009 at 4:41 pmsohbet,sohbet odalari
August 15th, 2009 at 4:43 pmsfmatt09 says:
Democrat Soldier…I think I fell in love with you after reading the first half your your post refuting bitblt. ;)
Seriously…it was brilliant. I served under DADT in the 90’s in the submarine force.
Two more Tinkerbells back in the civilian world where they belong!
August 15th, 2009 at 8:41 pm#44 – RealityCheck says:
————————————————————
“Two more Tinkerbells back in the civilian world where they belong!”
August 15th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Make that three tinkerbells, Mr. I “Slurp the Pole” Relity Check! For someone who likes to slurp the pole, you sure do hate yourself quite a bit, you closet-case, pillow-biting, turd-burgler! I’m not afraid for everyone to know that I’m gay, but you’re frightened to let anyone know that you secretly in love with service members of your own sex, you limp-wristed pole-slurper!
Come out of the closet, already!
August 16th, 2009 at 8:44 amROFLMAO….RealityCheck – come out, come out, wherever you are! And by the way, has your ignorant ass ever served in the military? Didn’t think so. You’re in luck, though – being an expert on male anatomy, I’d like to show you a few areas of your body you can shove your tinkerbell comments. You game? Pussy.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:21 pm