Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, has long taken good-humoured, pointed jabs at the powerful. In this clip, he takes on President Obama for two areas where he is the weakest: Torture and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
I’ve said before that I think that Obama should prosecute the torturers. But I also think he’s being too timid on DADT. While it’s true that President Clinton got us into this disaster, it wasn't by moving too quickly to end the ban on gay servicemembers, but by moving incorrectly. In any case, that was a very different time. I believe that President Obama should issue an Executive Order ending all discharges under DADT while his “review” of the policy is underway. Congress will do nothing to stop him.
Stewart shows a slide containing a simple fact: That since 1993 over 12,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers have been discharged under DADT, among them 54 Arabic speakers (along with speakers of Farsi and Korean, among other language specialists). This has not only been a stupid waste of valuable human resources in a dangerous era, but also an very, very expensive waste, with some estimates putting the total costs of DADT in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is way past time to end DADT, and President Obama should move to do so.
As a non-US citizen, I guess I'm not privileged enough to view the video clip. (Although I'm sure you share the same frustration. :-)
At any rate, I agree with you completely. DADT was not only absurd in its time, but doubly so now because it's demonstrably unneeded. All this talk about how gay people somehow implicitly destroy morale can be disproved simply by looking at the military of countries that do allow gay people. Like, oh, say... Canada.
(Come to think of it... Knowing humankind's affinity for rumours and gossip, wouldn't not knowing about a particular soldier have higher potential to create unneeded accusations and uncertainty---something sure to decrease morale?)
Mark: I had no idea the video was restricted anywhere—I've always thought that if I can view a clip, everyone can. NZ now has Comedy Central available on our pay-TV service, but one channel was carrying "The Daily Show" before that. In any case, I have a policy of not embedding videos that can't be seen everywhere, so I guess I'll have to add Comedy Central. Mind you, I edited the HTML a bit so maybe I killed something accidentally…
As for DADT, New Zealand also has no restrictions on service by gay service members with no issues.
I think Clinton's mistake is that he should have done as President Truman did when intergrating the armed forces and just issued an executive order. A shit storm would have resulted but, ultimately, the president has sole authority for how the military is run. Instead, Clinton even toyed with the idea of segregated (!) units for gay and lesbian soldiers—like African Americans had before Truman's Executive Order. Now, of coufrse, Clinton says DADT was a colossal mistake, and one of his biggest regrets.
Roger: I saw that other clip somewhere and it does help point out the absurdity of DADT. Mark, maybe you should follow the link and see if you can see the vids there. BTW Roger, I noticed you're using embedded links in comments—well done!
I think you're right about the passing analogy, and one I heard only recently was that DADT was the equivalent of asking Muslims to pretend they're Jewish (or vice versa, for that matter). To use my favourite phrase from my activist days, DADT is "just plain stupid".
Nah, I'm pretty sure the issue is with Comedy Central and their crazy legal team. I appreciate all your help with the extra link, Roger, but both websites give me the same message: "In Canada, Comedy Central videos are available on The Comedy Network"
It doesn't give me a link or anything; I have to go to the Comedy Network's front page, where I can navigate around, remember the show and the episode I want to see, and view the entire show (not just a short clip). Irritating, to say the least!
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As a non-US citizen, I guess I'm not privileged enough to view the video clip. (Although I'm sure you share the same frustration. :-)
At any rate, I agree with you completely. DADT was not only absurd in its time, but doubly so now because it's demonstrably unneeded. All this talk about how gay people somehow implicitly destroy morale can be disproved simply by looking at the military of countries that do allow gay people. Like, oh, say... Canada.
(Come to think of it... Knowing humankind's affinity for rumours and gossip, wouldn't not knowing about a particular soldier have higher potential to create unneeded accusations and uncertainty---something sure to decrease morale?)
There's a follow-up video on Evanier's page, which, I gather you can't watch either: here.
When I first heard about DADT, I thought, "What?" It rather reminded me of Negroes passing for white in the day.
Mark: I had no idea the video was restricted anywhere—I've always thought that if I can view a clip, everyone can. NZ now has Comedy Central available on our pay-TV service, but one channel was carrying "The Daily Show" before that. In any case, I have a policy of not embedding videos that can't be seen everywhere, so I guess I'll have to add Comedy Central. Mind you, I edited the HTML a bit so maybe I killed something accidentally…
As for DADT, New Zealand also has no restrictions on service by gay service members with no issues.
I think Clinton's mistake is that he should have done as President Truman did when intergrating the armed forces and just issued an executive order. A shit storm would have resulted but, ultimately, the president has sole authority for how the military is run. Instead, Clinton even toyed with the idea of segregated (!) units for gay and lesbian soldiers—like African Americans had before Truman's Executive Order. Now, of coufrse, Clinton says DADT was a colossal mistake, and one of his biggest regrets.
Roger: I saw that other clip somewhere and it does help point out the absurdity of DADT. Mark, maybe you should follow the link and see if you can see the vids there. BTW Roger, I noticed you're using embedded links in comments—well done!
I think you're right about the passing analogy, and one I heard only recently was that DADT was the equivalent of asking Muslims to pretend they're Jewish (or vice versa, for that matter). To use my favourite phrase from my activist days, DADT is "just plain stupid".
Nah, I'm pretty sure the issue is with Comedy Central and their crazy legal team. I appreciate all your help with the extra link, Roger, but both websites give me the same message: "In Canada, Comedy Central videos are available on The Comedy Network"
It doesn't give me a link or anything; I have to go to the Comedy Network's front page, where I can navigate around, remember the show and the episode I want to see, and view the entire show (not just a short clip). Irritating, to say the least!
See? SEE?! Your country lets the homos marry, then you don't get to see Comedy Central clips. Coincidence? I think not…
Being without a zip code (I'm in the UK), I can't message Prez O on this, so I've done what I can, which is to post a message on his Facebook page.
If anyone has a better idea of how to contact him, please let me know!
I suppose there's always old-fashioned mail…
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