Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Fail Hangover Day: Bill Clinton and Rachel Maddow Tell the Truth

Yesterday was really depressing. We woke up with vodka shooting us in the forehead after staying up late screaming about how America is well on its way to becoming a conservative religious country of “Freedom”-loving hypocrites. 22 of 26 NATO member states let homosexuals serve openly. Once again America is leading the way in bass awkwardness. We woke up and took some Advil and surveyed the reaminders.

Bill Clinton says DADT wasn’t enacted as he expected:

CBS’s Katie Couric asked Clinton if he regrets putting DADT in place to which he replied, “”Oh, yeah. But keep in mind, I didn’t choose this policy.” He then blamed Republicans, who he said were seeking an absolute ban on gays in the military. And then said this: “When Colin Powell sold me on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ here’s what he said it would be: Gay service members would never get in trouble for going to gay bars, marching in gay rights parades as long as they weren’t in uniform. That’s a very different don’t ask, don’t tell than we got.”

John McCain doesn’t really care about the “facts”:

Mike Almy. Victor Fehrenbach. Margaret Witt. Just a couple names of respected service members kicked out of the military after being forced out of the closet — not through their own choice, but because they were outed by jilted ex-lovers or involuntary discovery of their personal lives. But Sen. John McCain, speaking to reporters today after he succeeded in keeping Democrats from invoking cloture to force a vote on DADT’s repeal, keeps insisting “it is not the policy” of the military to actively hunt for gay soldiers and remove them. McCain, you see, “knows the military very well,” and he “doesn’t care what you say” because “I know what’s being done. … I know the military very well. They are not telling you the truth.” Senator McCain is either lying through his teeth, or the most misinformed self-professed expert on gays in the military.

Rachel Maddow explains it all:

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LADY GAGA:

Lady Gaga didn’t really like how that shit went down either:

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24 Comments

  1. In a swirling shit storm of redic, Rachel Maddow is a safe harbor for my sanity.

    Hold me Rachel, until it’s all over.

  2. A part of me really wants to believe Bill Clinton. BUT HOW CONVENIENT that you don’t support once you’re out of office. thus, you can’t do shit now. Stop blaming Republicans, basically.

    • unless i’m misremembering, and mind you this was the early 90s and i’ve lost quite a few brain cells since then, bill clinton did not work up dadt with the intent that it be this. his selling point back then was that it would be a kind of safe harbor for gays in the military, that we couldn’t be persecuted for being gay. but dadt in its intent has been used by the crusty rich old white mens brigade to actually protect the straight white homophobic military peeps from having to suffer being near a gay. holy carp why does it feel like it’s 1950 all over again in america?

      :|

  3. Clinton is full. of. shit. That is quite the revisionist history. He’s trying to protect his legacy which currently has a big old DADT and DOMA stain on it.

    I was a 16 year old baby dyke in 1993, and I have a lot of feelings about 1993 and Clinton. Imagine if 17 years from now McCain tried to say it wasn’t his fault. (I don’t think he’ll be alive in 17 years, but I mean hypothetically.)

  4. What a load of fucking bullshit.

    I can’t believe some are willing to give Clinton a pass…… AGAIN

    When all else fails, blame the poopie-pant Republicans.

    I’m so glad to see this thread isn’t an echo chamber. Thank gawd some of us aren’t buying into this.

  5. I think it’s pretty safe to say at this point that hating gays is something that Dems and Repubs can agree on across party lines. Isn’t that swell??

  6. I think it’s pretty safe to say that hating gays is something that Dems and Repubs can agree on across party lines. Isn’t that swell??

    • Gahhh why did this post twice?? sorry guys. my computer is being a weirdo. probably just angry at john mccain

  7. I personally could care a less if Maddow isn’t happy and I’m quite sure Mccain Clinton or any one else in our government
    cares how Maddow is feeling
    By the way John Mccain wasn’t the only person against this bill
    Had the Dems been willing to wait until Dec 1st for this which was the original plan and had not tried to throw the dream act in for votes in Nov and had passed through the aide for our troops this big mess would not be going on right now
    Wanna blame somebody? blame your Dems for not making it happen
    You would rather blame Clinton and Mccain
    Maddow right now has a segment on Uganda kill the gays bill
    why not just call the show Rachel Maddow all I care about are gay issues at least then viewers would know what the show is all about
    Hey Rachel there are other things happening all over the world and here at home that could use some attention
    It got voted down get over it really isnt going to drastically change any ones life or cause a war or starve anyone or torture any one so shut up Its almost as obnoxious as quackadoo and stupid stuff like that

  8. Should I even respond to someone so blatantly attempting to stir shit?
    Hey! Hey! Look at me! Look at me! I’m gonna go a queer website and bait responses to my obvious attempt at bolstering my own vanity! I’m going to say something so obviously wrong that it can’t be that I’m clueless – I’m just a whore for attention I can’t get by being decent!

    I guess that makes you a queer bait, then, and I’ll bite.
    Won’t change ANYONE’S life drastically?
    You mean it totally won’t change the lives of gay men and lesbian women who are willing to put their asses and existences on the line so that you can type like a beligerent adolescent freely?
    You don’t even have the slightest idea how many lesbians are actively serving in the military right now – they make up a pretty massive portion of the women in the service right now, buckaroo.
    It won’t change the lives of their partners, who won’t have to scurry around in the shadows existing in half a relationship that has to be hidden away like a big dirty secret?

    Because, you know, shit like that so totally doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that we have people willing to go over and be shot at and probably shoot other people in return, who at the same time have to have the fear of losing their careers and livelihoods (again, careers and livelihoods that save your personal ass) hanging over their heads when all they should really worry about is their actual physical heads not being blown off.

    Did you get the part where they’re out there to save your ass? Has that sunk in yet?
    Because, I don’t know, doesn’t it seem like a really shitty idea to have that much more reason for young people to avoid military service? Should we really be, at this time, limiting the number of qualified applicants for what’s pretty much a very dangerous if necessary job?

    “Oh just shut up?”
    That’s your big stance, your big argument? What are you, a big fucking child? What it simply boils down to is that you just want to be able to live in a bubble and pretend that queers aren’t out here in your space, sharing your existence, and otherwise “bothering” you with wanting things like to be treated like human beings. It’s awful, that you’re forced into an awareness of something outside the hole your head occupies willfully in your own ass.

  9. Dear Bill Clinton,

    Yeah right. You used the GLBT community as a political pawn and we continue to pay the price. I believe that you regret it so, rather than point fingers and spin the past, you should just apologize to us and do everything it takes to make it right.

    Sincerely,

    Vikki

    p.s. Why are you so charismatic? Why (despite everything) would I happily go out and have a beer with you? This is most disconcerting.

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