Since President Obama announced his intent to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in this year’s State of the Union Address, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who had previously said that he was open to considering repeal if the military carefully studied the consequences of such a policy change– has vocally opposed lifting the ban. But his objections transcended mere policy disagreements. At every step of the way, the senior Senator of Arizona acted as a thorn in the Democrats’ back, complaining about the normal time constraints of Senate hearings and implying that the military leadership supported repeal because they were carrying out a partisan agenda for the President.

From the very first DADT hearing in February 2010 to today’s session, the Senator refused to consider the views of the witnesses before him. This morning — after reviewing the overwhelming positive DADT report and listening to the pleas of the leaders to end the policy in the lame duck session — McCain went further, openly implying that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen was not living up to the expectations of leadership because he did not ask the troops if they favored repealing the policy:

MCCAIN: Then why wouldn’t we just ask the question?

MULLEN: Because, I fundamentally sir, think it’s an incredibly bad precedent to ask them about, to essentially vote on a policy.

MCAIN: It’s not voting sir, it’s asking their views….Now I understand what your answer is. We would not ask their views on whether this policy should be changed or not, as the first question.

MULLEN: We’ve gotten in great part their views as a result of this survey.

MCCAIN: Well obviously, we’ll go around and around, but why we didn’t just simply ask them how they felt about it….Again, every great leader I’ve known has said, what are your views on this issue?

Watch it:

Significantly, all of the leaders in front of the commission — Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Working Group chairmen Defense Department General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson and Army Gen. Carter F. Ham — disagreed with McCain’s approach of polling the troops about the policy. “I can’t think of a single precedent in American history of doing a referendum of the american armed forces on a policy issue,” Gates said, asking, “are you going to ask them if they want 15 month tours, are you going to ask them if they want to be part of the surge in Iraq?” McCain didn’t name a single “great leader” who favored a referendum.

For a complete run down of McCain’s top 11 positions on the issue, click HERE.

This morning, during a hearing about the impact of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the co-chairmen of the Pentagon’s Working Group study of the policy effectively pushed back against Republican’s efforts to use the report as a reason to keep the current policy in place.

Significantly, Army Gen. Carter F. Ham the co-charimen of the Pentagon’s Working Group studying the impact of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and a skeptic of lifting the ban announced that he would personally support ending the policy. “It is my personal view that I’m very concerned about the timing of the courts and so personally I think it is time to move debate and discussion to decision and implementation. So yes sir, I think it is time to change,” Ham responded to a question from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who was forced to move on to Gates.

For the GOP, it only got worse from there, as the witnesses effectively debunked Republican concerns one by one. Below is only a partial compilation:

- CLAIM: Should not lift ban in a time of war.

MULLEN RESPONDS: I find the argument that war is not the time to change to be antithetical with our experiences since 2001. War does not stifle change, it demands it. It does not make change harder, it facilities it.

- CLAIM: Combat troops believe repeal would be disruptive.

HAM RESPONDS: A subsequent question to that was, under intense combat, what would your response be. And we saw the negative rates drop dramatically.

- CLAIM: 28% response rate is too low.

HAM RESPONDS: Twenty-eight percent overall response rate is well within the historical range of Department of Defense surveys of military personnel.

- CLAIM: 265,000 servicemembers would leave the military.

GATES RESPONDS: Based on the survey itself, experience would dramatically lower those numbers. If I believed that a quarter of a million people would leave the military would leave immediately, if given the opportunity, I would certainly have second thoughts about that.

- CLAIM: Servicemembers should have been asked if they believe policy should be changed.

GATES RESPONDS: I can’t think of a single precedent in American history of doing a referendum of the american armed forces on a policy issue.

Watch a compilation:

The hearings will continue tomorrow, when the four Service Chiefs — who are less “sanguine” about repeal than Gates and Mullen — testify before the committee.