Rachel Maddow features gay soliders post DADT; Credits Obama with keeping promises [video]
Monday night Rachel Maddow featured clips from her extensive coverage of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bars gays from serving openly in the US military. She featured Victor Ferenbach, Katie Miller, Mike Almy, and Jonathan Hopkins — servicemembers who were either kicked out of the military or had resigned in protest over the deceptive nature of the 17-year-old policy. Congress voted this past Saturday to repeal DADT. (Rachel Maddow)
”Whether you agree or disagree with what Democrats have done in the first two years of President Obama’s presidency, they have freaking done it.
”The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for Women, expanding children’s health insurance, new [Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act] legislation that they said could not be done, tobacco regulation, credit card reform, student loan reform, the stimulus.
”Which in addition to helping pull this country back from the brink of a Great Depression, was also the largest tax cut ever. The largest investment in clean energy ever, the single largest investment in education in our country ever.
”There was also a little thing you might have heard of called Health Reform. Also, Wall Street reform; the improvements to the GI Bill, the most expansive food safety bill since the 1930s.
”And tomorrow, President Obama will officially sign a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell….” President Obama not only made a commitment to get it done, and refused to cave on that commitment, but he also devised the strategy by which it could be done. From the beginning of his term, he worked with Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates to create the conditions in Washington — painstakingly, to create the conditions under which it was more likely that DADT would be repealed than not…. It took two years of solid work. He did not waver on it, and in the end, he made it happen.”
News show host Rachel Maddow taking time to recognize the accomplishments of President Barack Obama‘s leadership on a number of issues during his first half of being in office.
Many Obama supporters had been grousing loudly about the President’s inability to get legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress. Some even called him a tool of conservative Republicans for compromising on big issues like tax increases for the richest Americans. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Republicans in the US Senate and House have refused to support Obama’s wishes or Democratic proposals.
Yet in these final days of the current Congress, a number of measures, including repeal of the military’s ban on gay servicemembers, have come up for a vote; and some have actually been adopted. The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is scheduled to be signed by President Obama today, Wednesday, December 22, 2010.
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