Lt Choi posts/interviews
June 30, 2009
Herr Olbermann speaks out against barry as far as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He brings up the obvious point that needs to be hammered at. barry is Commander in Chief. They have to follow his orders. He doesn’t need to wait for a “generational gap” to pass. He doesn’t have to wait until Congress changes things. He can stop discharges. He can suspend investigations. He can make a stand. But he won’t. The gay community has always been expendable to him and they saw that with DOMA. [Secretary Clinton led the way in getting same sex partners benefits.] The polls are in his favor – but his panderment takes precedent. The value of gaining more barryfans is greater than the chance of losing the LGBT community — because where are they going to go?
What’s Rachel Maddow saying lately – other than blaming “birthers” for that crazy man who killed at the Holocaust Museum? Have to repost that video – unfortunately it was hand transcribed and no way I’m doing that again.
Video courtesy of RAWSTORY.
TRANSCRIPT
OLBERMANN: Marking the anniversary of the modern gay rights movement in front of those now fighting for it, the president likened the struggle to past civil rights battles, then listed his administration‘s accomplishments towards achieving equality, with one exception, repealing Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell. In our third story, four decades after the Stonewall riots, the president faces criticism that he is stone-walling. In the East Room, Mr. Obama telling members of the gay community and their families, welcome to your White House. Then addressing the elephant in the East Room, the 16-year-old policy banning gays from openly serving in the military.
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OBAMA: I believe Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell doesn‘t contribute to our national security. In fact, I believe—I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.
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OLBERMANN: And while Mr. Obama also pledged to work with the Pentagon and Congress to repeal the policy, the commander in chief gave no firm time line. Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, one of those discharged under Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell, attended the ceremony last night, and spoke with the president.
VICTOR FEHRENBACH, DISCHARGED FROM ARMY THROUGH DON‘T ASK DON‘T TELL:
[Look at this man's resume and ask yourself why his sexual orientation matters. Do you know they take convicted felons in the army? I hope Lt Col Fehrenbach doesn't let barry rest on this. A look in the eye doesn't mean much from barry. How many times did he look The American People in the eye about Iraq?]
FEHRENBACH: He looked at me right in the eye and he said, we are going to get this done. And then he continued to say, you know, everyone seems to be on board with it. We have about 75 percent of the public that supports this. What we have is a generational issue, so there‘s some convincing to do, that there‘s a generational gap, it seems, in some of the senior leadership.
[Why can't barry be honest just for once? Why does the C-I-C have to "convince" anyone?]
OLBERMANN: Earlier tonight, a military board recommending that Lieutenant Dan Choi, an Iraq war veteran Arabic linguist, be discharged from service. If that recommendation holds, Choi will become the 266th service member to fall victim to Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell since President Obama took office in January. Joining us now is activist Dan Savage, author of “The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family.” Thanks for some of your time tonight, sir.
DAN SAVAGE, ACTIVIST: Thank you for having me, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Is it times like this where the president needs to be reminded he‘s also commander in chief of the military? Is there an argument to be made that he can‘t somehow use that authority to end this process?
SAVAGE: There is an argument to be made. And last week, 78 members of the Congress made just that argument in a letter to the president to encouraging to use his authority as commander in chief to suspend enforcement of Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell, and end the discharges of gay and lesbian service members like Choi and Fehrenbach. He has that authority. You see over at the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano has used just that authority to suspend enforcement of something called the widowers penalty, which is a law that requires people who have been married to a U.S. citizen for less than two years, whose spouse dies, to be deported.
Napolitano wants that law changed. She thinks it‘s cruel and inhumane. And she suspended enforcement while Congress, quote/unquote, works on a fix. She seems to have authorities and powers that the president, her boss, commander in chief, does not? It‘s really quite shocking that everyone in that room would applaud so politely when the president stood there and pretended like he couldn‘t end at least enforcement of Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell today, right now.
OLBERMANN: What Lieutenant Colonel Fehrenbach said after the conversation he had with the president last night is that the president told him there was this generational gap to deal with. But even the oldest man in the Army is not required to follow the orders of the president of the United States? What is—it feels like—does it not feel like this to you, being directly involved in this, and to me as sort of on the sidelines, that there‘s something that he‘s hinting at, that Obama is hinting that, that is just not getting through to anybody?
SAVAGE: Well, he‘s the president. He doesn‘t have to blink out distress signals. He can issue orders. Yes, there may be a generation gap. There was a much bigger and wider and more problematic generation gap when Truman ordered the military to integrate racially. If Truman had waited for everyone to be on board—the president himself said 75 percent of the country supports the end of Don‘t Ask Don‘t Tell. How many more retrograde bigots do we need to wait to come up to speed before the president moves at least on suspending Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell. And then demanding that Congress repeal it.
OLBERMANN: Is there—he said generational. Is there also a religious thing going on here? Is Obama coming up against the organized fundamentalists, proselytizers who look at the military and so these fertile fields for indoctrination among the new recruits, and, of course, the indoctrination of the more of these restrictive religions, components that include homophobia?
SAVAGE: Perhaps. Obama does seem to have kind of a hang-up when it comes to wanting to find common ground with the likes of Rick Warren and fundamentalist Christians, who are never going to see eye to eye with him on gay and lesbian issues.
If he is our fierce advocate, if he is our champion, as he described himself last night at the White House, he needs to stop pandering to religious conservatives.
Not all religious people oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians. Many religious organizations and people have endorsed marriage equality and endorsed the appeal of Don‘t Ask Don‘t Tell. The president needs to worry more about those religious people, and less about Rick Warren and his ilk.
OLBERMANN: Was there any silver lining in this for you? Did you see anything to suggest there‘s progress within the administration?
SAVAGE: Well, we, once again, got a reiteration of the promises the president made to the gay and lesbian community. We got them know as president, as opposed to as candidate Obama. And there was tremendous symbolic value to what happened at the White House yesterday. I don‘t want to discount that.
However, there‘s been very little action, very little progress. And what comes out of the president‘s mouth doesn‘t seem to translate into policy. And we didn‘t—we got the promises when he was candidate Obama.
What we want now is actually we want the fierce urgency of now. People are being discharged from the military now. People are being turned away from their partner‘s bedsides during medical emergencies now.
We weren‘t sold the fierce urgency of maybe in my second term or I‘ll get to it or one day or wait, have patience. We want these promises fulfilled now.
[barry took care of Gitmo on day one and yet has allowed 266 servicemembers to be discharged since that first day - including Arab linguists. He's a damn joke.]
OLBERMANN: Yes. On two levels, A, human rights and, B, by the way, we need all of the Arab linguists we can find. I don‘t care what they look like, what they do, or who they are. The president is god damned wrong on this. Dan Savage, author and activist, thank you for being here.
SAVAGE: Thank you for having me, Keith.
