Comments

1
BREAKING: The tree from the top of the Space Needle has been stolen!
2
My fingers were crossed that fresh off Colbert he might have been in-studio with my favorite hunk of self-delighted sportscaster made good! Still, a nice nod to the IGBP shirt under the hoodie, and (perhaps because more relaxed?) better looking than on Colbert...
3
"Not to put too fine a point on it"....Oh Dan, if you ever wanted to, you'd make a great Southern belle, "She's such a slut, bless her heart!"
5
@4. I'm young, so you'll have to forgive me, but did we have a go-to media guy for all things gay before him? He has my vote.
6
I kind of love that Dan has finally just said "fuck it" to his one nice dress shirt and is dressing however the hell he wants when he's on the teevee (and the hoodie & t-shirt looks just as good as a dress shirt, IMO).
7
McCain sounds like he's against repeal because Obama beat his ass in the election. And Senator McCain, the military leaders that you said you would listen to are telling you to repeal, so fucking listen.
8
As much as I agree with everything else Dan said, I have to disagree on calling McCain a bigot. First because I'm not sure he is one rather than just a mercenary politician trying to ride the Tea Party train to stay relevant when moderate Republicans are dropping like flies. Second because, even if he is, people on the fence may react negatively to such strong accusations. Then again, maybe putting it so strongly is what's needed to draw attention to the injustice of the situation.
9
Addendum to @8: On second thought, I'm not sure if cowardly appeasing bigots is any better than being a bigot, so perhaps I'm arguing more for accuracy than anything else.
10
@8 @9 Keep backing up and you finally will agree, as you should. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.

Dan - fabulous as always, no matter what you wear. I am proud to say that my son, who is now a graduate student at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, was called "The Dan Savage of the Portland Mercury" during his fairly brief stay there because he reported on gay issues.

Dan has my vote to speak whatever the fuck he wants to say, on behalf of whomever he feels qualified to speak.
11
I think another possibility is that McCain is simply losing his mind and doesn't know or care what he said before, it only matters what he's saying right now. He should be checked frequently for dementia, like every hour or so.
12
I'm not sure if @11 is sincere but I actually have real concerns about McCain and seriously wonder if he is losing it..... I used to respect him and understood his opposing beliefs but now he seems to be just charging around making no sense at all. Remember that funny still capture of him at an Obama debate with his tongue sticking out? That shot comes to mind quite frequently for me, now.
13
@12 Jaymz, yes I am totally serious, I think he's losing it. He has contradicted himself too many times to keep count.
15
@14 If he thinks so little of gay people that he feels he can use our civil rights as a political tool, then he's a bigot. If he doesn't care about the effects on our lives of dehumanizing us, then he is a bigot.
17
McCain is a philosophical opportunist. For him to retract earlier stands is not new, and not limited to DADT. Whatever position will best effect a desirable political outcome is the one he'll take. The McCain of 2000 was a much different personage than the one he's taken up now. I have no idea why - it's obvious it doesn't work, he's not going to have a career tha much longer anyway, amd we have no idea what his real beliefs are (I wouldn't be surprised if he had none). Which is a roundabout way of saying, yeah, he's probably lost it.
18
Wow! Dan went 3+ minutes in the same room with an open mike without swearing. Good job!
19
@17: His beliefs are placed on his desk each morning by GOP handlers. Exactly when this started happening, I'm not sure, but I agree that this wasn't the case back around 2000.
20
hell, I'm just here to brown nose: great job Dan. Very articulate and on-point.
21
I love this so much! Perfect points-- especially the ones about blackmail/security and the professionalism of the military-- to destroy the arguments of any supposedly military-lovin DADT-supportin homophobe.
22
Echoing: Dan did a good job, and hit a lot of good points.

In response to McCain: yes the military is at a recruiting and retention high...because of unemployment and a lackluster economy. No other reason, not because DADT has caused a surge in retention--that's just stupid to imply. And they're also looking to shed people with the Iraq/Afghan war gravy train derailing. And if the goal is to shed people and they think accepting gays will do that, what a great reason to repeal it now when the military would love to shed some dirtbags.

In minor defense of Gates: I think it's not so much a fear of CHAOS if it's overturned by courts but that the DoD would like to give officers/non-commissioned officers training on how to deal with bigotry or hazing they encounter, and to rewrite the UCMJ to be more in line with modern values (it still explicitly forbids sodomy, so what would happen to that?). I'm not sure sexuality training will be taken any more seriously than sexual harassment training, but they at least need to get the message out to troops and their leaders about what is unacceptable harassment. Gates isn't the bad guy here - he wants this gone, knows it's inevitable, and wants to train people to deal with the change. The other thing he's probably trying to avoid is a bunch of injunction against enforcement-enforcement again!-no, injunction! flailing that seems to happen in the courts and has the potential to cost people their careers.

Now if only Congress would stop being such scrotums about this.

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