It's not time to deflate on the DADT repeal vote

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The hour is NOW to pass repeal of DADT! We're THREE votes away!

Problem this time is . . . Reid rushed the vote today because he didn't trust Collins and the rest. Collins wanted a standalone DADT bill. She wanted to strip it from the Defense bill and she promised that would get her vote and the others. Reid (understandably) didn't trust her and jumped ahead with a cloture vote (that failed).

Now Collins and Lieberman want to introduce a standalone DADT bill . . . Who the fuck do we believe? The President says he wants them to get it together THIS lame-duck Congress . . .


from Steve Kornacki at Salon: http://www.salon.com/news/dont_ask_dont_tell/?story=/politics/war_room/2010/12/09/dadt_repeal_dies

Collins and Lieberman plan to introduce repeal as a standalone legislation

* Susan Collins: Maine's junior Republican senator, who reaffirmed her support for ending the policy last week, wanted Reid to make guarantees about the length of any floor debate (four days, she said) and the number of amendments that would be allowed for consideration. Reid, apparently believing that Collins was trying to run out the clock (the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for the year next week), went ahead with the vote without reaching an agreement. Collins decried his action -- but then voted for cloture. So what were all her objections about? If she could live with repeal without a protracted debate, why did she spend the last week helping to hold up the process? Maybe she really was trying to help her fellow Republicans (like, say, her good friend/ardent DADT repeal foe John McCain) run out the clock -- so that, once it was clear Reid didn't have 60 votes, she cast a symbolic vote for cloture (which probably won't look bad back home).

* Harry Reid: It's tough to tell how much, if any, blame the majority leader deserves. The answer depends on the motives of Collins, Brown and Murkowski. If there really was a scenario under which they'd all vote for cloture, and potentially bring a wavering Democrat (like West Virginia's Joe Manchin, who joined the filibuster on Thursday) along with them, then Reid dropped the ball by rushing to call a vote. If Collins was sincere in wanting four days of debate (and if that would have brought several other senators on board for repeal), Reid could have accommodated her by extending the Senate session past next week. But if he was right that they were looking for excuses to stick with the filibuster, then there was no reason not to force the issue now.

____ It's still possible that there will be another DADT vote before the new Congress convenes in January -- there's even some chatter that Democrats will bring the issue back on its own, and not as part of the overall defense bill. But if and when this happens, there'll be even less time left in the session -- and it will be only easier for Collins, Brown, et al. to make excuses for joining McCain's filibuster. And once the clock runs out and the new Republican Congress is sworn in, you can pretty much forget about repeal working its way to the president's desk in 2011 and 2012 -- and maybe well beyond that.


Update: Per Andrew Sullivan, who is monitoring Joe Lieberman's Twitter feed, Collins and Lieberman plan to introduce repeal as a standalone repeal legislation. At least theoretically, this keeps the possibility of repeal alive. If there really are 60 (or 61 0r 62, as Collins claims) senators who want to end DADT, this might make it easier for them to stand as a bloc to prevent time-killing/poison pill amendments from being introduced. We'll see.

read: http://www.salon.com/news/dont_ask_dont_tell/?story=/politics/war_room/2010/12/09/dadt_repeal_dies

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