Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Charles Pierce: Obama, Gay Marriage, and the American Equality Quilt
LITTLE FALLS-HERKIMER SERVICE AREA, New York State Thruway — Odd to get the news via television on the radio. MSNBC was on the satellite as we came down out of the Finger Lakes and Chris Matthews was howling about The wolves! The wolves! The wolf dens were going to open and the wolves were going to be on the loose. Martin Bashir seemed to be trying to pry Matthews off the ceiling of the studio. The president apparently had told Robin Roberts of ABC that he had come to support marriage equality and, while Matthews reckoned it to be a great day for human rights, which it unquestionably is, he also cautioned, in a rather unfortunate double-entendre, that "Karl Rove is going to be gnawing on this bone right up until the election."
The administration really did manage this well. I do not believe for a moment, as the combined propaganda apparatus of both the White House and NBC News are going to sell it, that David Gregory, out of the clear blue sky, asked Joe Biden about gay marriage on Meet The Press last Sunday without knowing he was going to get a whopper of an answer. (Sometimes, it can be very useful to have a vice president with a reputation as a motormouth.) I also don't believe that the Morning Zoo crew on MSNBC just happened to wonder what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thought about the whole deal a couple of days later. I don't think it was any coincidence that the North Carolina vote on an egregiously gratuitous ban on not only gay marriage, but also of civil unions, happened the day before the president hustled to sit down with ABC this afternoon. I think somebody on Pennsylvania Avenue — or, perhaps, from the campaign HQ in Chicago — whispered a little somethin'-somethin' to someone at 30 Rock, knowing what was going to happen in North Carolina, to get the ball rolling. I am not riding down the thruway in a turnip truck.
As to the argument that the president "didn't want this" to open up in an election year, I think he did. It's too perfect an ending to the narrative of his "evolving position" that he's been talking about for three years. He saw a clear injustice — the North Carolina vote — and he decided that his conscience would brook no more delay. Look at how carefully he wove his support of marriage equality into the fabric of everything else he'd done for the cause of equality since he's been president. He talked about how our men and women in the armed forces (you know, the gay ones who can serve openly because he ended Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, and who can get married in Massachusetts and Hawaii because he told his Justice Department not to pursue cases under the Defense of Marriage Act) shouldn't be denied a right that we all have — to marry — just because they've left the killing fields. I think he made a precise political calculation, that being ahead on this issue will be more beneficial to him going forward than the prolonged exercise in subtlety that had begun to look like dithering. I think both the Biden and Duncan interviews were long-range reconnaissance, and I think he got the information he wanted. I have my differences with this president, god knows, but this is one thing of which I am certain: He does absolutely nothing by accident. He has spent his entire life learning how to take cautious, considered steps. He's damned good at it by now.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-gay-marriage-8707693#ixzz1uPeH2Akn
The administration really did manage this well. I do not believe for a moment, as the combined propaganda apparatus of both the White House and NBC News are going to sell it, that David Gregory, out of the clear blue sky, asked Joe Biden about gay marriage on Meet The Press last Sunday without knowing he was going to get a whopper of an answer. (Sometimes, it can be very useful to have a vice president with a reputation as a motormouth.) I also don't believe that the Morning Zoo crew on MSNBC just happened to wonder what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thought about the whole deal a couple of days later. I don't think it was any coincidence that the North Carolina vote on an egregiously gratuitous ban on not only gay marriage, but also of civil unions, happened the day before the president hustled to sit down with ABC this afternoon. I think somebody on Pennsylvania Avenue — or, perhaps, from the campaign HQ in Chicago — whispered a little somethin'-somethin' to someone at 30 Rock, knowing what was going to happen in North Carolina, to get the ball rolling. I am not riding down the thruway in a turnip truck.
As to the argument that the president "didn't want this" to open up in an election year, I think he did. It's too perfect an ending to the narrative of his "evolving position" that he's been talking about for three years. He saw a clear injustice — the North Carolina vote — and he decided that his conscience would brook no more delay. Look at how carefully he wove his support of marriage equality into the fabric of everything else he'd done for the cause of equality since he's been president. He talked about how our men and women in the armed forces (you know, the gay ones who can serve openly because he ended Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, and who can get married in Massachusetts and Hawaii because he told his Justice Department not to pursue cases under the Defense of Marriage Act) shouldn't be denied a right that we all have — to marry — just because they've left the killing fields. I think he made a precise political calculation, that being ahead on this issue will be more beneficial to him going forward than the prolonged exercise in subtlety that had begun to look like dithering. I think both the Biden and Duncan interviews were long-range reconnaissance, and I think he got the information he wanted. I have my differences with this president, god knows, but this is one thing of which I am certain: He does absolutely nothing by accident. He has spent his entire life learning how to take cautious, considered steps. He's damned good at it by now.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-gay-marriage-8707693#ixzz1uPeH2Akn
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Biden, Duncan and then the Big Dog himself (can we call him that, or is that still Bill Clinton?!?).
