Obama's - And the Democrats' - Self Inflicted LGBT Crisis

As the DADT debacle continues to simmer and many LGBT Americans consider abandoning the Democrats, Politico has a great - and lengthy - piece that looks at how the current mess over DADT repeal is all of Obama's own creation. Whether or not he initiated the "go slow" approach or foolishly listened to Rahm Emanuel (who has botched the issue DADT twice now), the buck stops with the Liar-in-Chief. Honestly, I feel zero sympathy for Obama and truth be told, I do not believe he gives a flying f*ck about LGBT Americans or honorable service members discharged under DADT for the sole purpose of massaging the egos of hate filled Christianists. And as for the disingenouousness of Obama and his minion who are whining over possible suppressed voter turn out, if they want to see the real culprits, they need only look in the mirror. Pam Spauldig ha some choice words on this latter issue which I fully endorse. First, some highlights from the Politico story:
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Obama now faces his own political crisis over the issue that threatens his support from key Democratic constituencies, undermines his relationship with the Pentagon and puts him in the odd position of defending a practice he has denounced as discriminatory and harmful to national security.
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“It’s crazy that all this is happening 2½ weeks before a national election,” said Richard Socarides, an adviser to Clinton on gay issues during the ’93 fiasco. “The timing could not be worse for them, but it was fairly predictable that their strategy of postponing and delaying getting into this stuff was, at some point, going to come back to haunt them.”
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While many organized gay groups deferred to a greater or lesser extent to the White House’s strategy and timeline, bloggers like John Aravosis and in-your-face protesters like Dan Choi did not. The online activists and upstart groups never bought into the wait-for-the-Pentagon approach, . . .
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On Sept. 9, Phillips ruled “don’t ask” unconstitutional, relying in large part on the legal standard set forth in the 9th Circuit’s Witt case — the same one the Obama administration declined to challenge last year. Again, the policy of deferring the issue seemed to have backfired.
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For his part, Obama seemed bewildered and a tad indignant to be forced last week to defend his handling of the issue.
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Under my analysis, Obama's general spinelessness on EVERY issue, his total lack of any real desire or commitment to further LGBT equality under the civil laws, and his dishonesty have all combined together as the real driving forces behind the current debacle. More simply put, Obama lied to and then utterly abandoned LGBT Americans once he was elected. Now it's biting him in the ass. I hope it draws some real political blood. My blogger friend Pam Spaulding appropriately does does NOT mince her words. Here are some highlights:
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When the progressive allies of our community (who are dealing with the failures of this administration to properly address myriad issues) are blogging about how rank and blatant the LGBT shell game is that is going on, it really is game over. Joe and Co. at HRC have pulled the wool over the eyes of no one (save the die-hard Obama supporters) during these last two years.
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And this is why we have written criticism about this WH and Gay Inc. on the Blend at length and in detail for quite some time. What is extremely trying is having to deal with apologists who want to, in advance, blame the messenger for reduced turnout at the polls or suppressing voter interest.
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[W]e're left with only the courts moving the ball forward, and a Senate that has no chance of passing the weakened measure in the Def Auth bill that doesn't even stop the discharges. ENDA is dead for this year, DOMA's going nowhere (other than becoming an issue because of DADT).
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It's always about smoke and mirrors to make it look like something politically fierce is going on. Of course there's nothing wrong if something is actually going on, but watching the back-patting, for instance, regarding the back-channel compromising on DADT to save it from complete death is the symptom of the problem.

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The Obama administration's wounds are all self-inflicted and the White House deserves every single headache and political loss that may flow from it's lies and dishonesty.