If at some point today, around lunchtime, you heard a loud popping sound, that was most likely John McCain’s head as President Obama signed off on the long-overdue repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
I’m not at all sympathetic to McCain’s concerns over how letting homosexuals serve openly in the military could be disruptive because, frankly, I don’t believe that’s his real concern. I’m beginning to think he’s doesn’t like gay people…or worse, he’s swigged far too much of the far right’s Kool-Aid to express opinions on his own anymore. Why else would he continuously set and reset his personal benchmarks for supporting the repeal? First he said he would back the repeal when military leaders said it should happen. Then he wanted a report stating it should happen. Then he wanted a different report. Then he wanted to wait until Neil Patrick Harris rode up to him on a unicorn and said unto him “Give it up, old man.”
Whether McCain’s attitude has been more akin to political Fizzbin, CalvinBall, or 43-Man Squamish, I haven’t decided, but his staunch and ever-evolving resistance just makes me wonder if the guy is squirrelly about homosexuals. Not outright homophobic, mind you, but, you know, awkward and uncomfortable because he doesn’t “get” them.
I know the guy was a veteran and he still loves the Armed Forces and he wants what’s best for them — nothing at all wrong with that — but he needs to let this one go. This is progress and progress is inevitable; those who resist invariably fail and wind up looking foolish in retrospect. You watch: some day in the future, when we’re debating whether to let cyborgs and clones into the military, the squabble over letting gays and lesbians serve is going to seem as much of a no-brainer issue as the debate over whether African-American kid should be allowed to go to school with Honky-Americans does to us today.
Although this has been signed into law, the military must still prepare an implementation plan, which Obama and select head honchos must review and then take to the Legislature for certification — which means Senator McCain could still be a pill if he chose to be. And he probably will, under the guise of acting in his beloved military’s “best interests.”
There’s such a thing as caring too much, John.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
