Tag: Don't Ask Don't Tell

Political Battles Never End

I was just read­ing Steve Benen’s blog at The Wash­ing­ton Month­ly. He has an entry com­plain­ing about those Repub­li­cans who are work­ing on how they might rein­state Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I dis­agree with his com­plaint on two counts.

First, his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly recent his­to­ry, teach­es us that polit­i­cal bat­tles nev­er end. Wis­con­sin has passed the law strip­ping pub­lic ser­vice work­ers of almost all their col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, but the oppo­nents of that law are still work­ing hard to over­turn it. I do not believe I have seen any com­plaints from Steve about that.

Sec­ond, polls have shown that the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans want­ed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repealed. So I say let the Repub­li­cans go on record as want­i­ng to repeal it. As Amer­i­cans want jobs, the Repub­li­cans con­tin­ue to pur­sue agen­das that either have no effect on jobs or would cost jobs. If the Democ­rats come up with any decent mes­sag­ing at all, they should storm back to large majori­ties in 2012.