Lawrence O'Donnell invited Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, Clarke Cooper on his show to discuss prospects for legislative repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the lame duck. In brief, possible, but there's very little time on the clock.
(Don't you wish you could just go home, whether the job was done or not? That hasn't been MY employment experiences over the years. Senator Reid seems like a great boss.)
Lawrence frames his questioning by calling McCain's position "transparently fraudulent," a bait that Cooper declines to take, breezing right past it. Cooper expresses his confidence that, if the leaks of the Pentagon report prove to be true:
"...once the comprehensive review is published and shared with members of congress, I do believe that he will come around and do the right thing."
My faith in the good will of John McCain and of Republicans in general, is perhaps, substantially less than that of Lt. Cooper. I don't share his confidence that they are so easily persuaded by arguments grounded in things like facts.
But let's hope he's right. The fate of legislative repeal pretty much rests in the GOP being complicit or Harry Reid playing some serious hardball, like keep Senate in session right through Christmas if necessary. Let the GOP filibuster their bigotry right through the Baby Jesus' birthday if it's that important to them.
Another interesting question O'Donnell brings up is:
"Is there any Democrat who’s willing to filibuster the bill if it does not have a repeal of don’t ask don’t tell in it?"
Cooper appropriately doesn't comment, because, well, he's a Republican, and likely doesn't have any insight into what Democratic strategies exist.
It does seem like a good question to put to our Democratic leaders: Will you use the filibuster on any NDAA bill that does not include repeal?
Update: It's worth noting there are actually two actions that Sen. McCain could perform that would be tremendously helpful to the prospects of repeal moving forward. Of course, he could as Cooper presumes he'll do vote FOR repeal.
But he could also drop his filibuster threat, would would likely give Sens Brown, Colllins, Snowe and others a big sigh of relief. They can vote for the NDAA and play that politically however they like. "I didn't really vote for the repeal! I voted to fund the troops! Repeal was attached by Democrats!" Of course, that was the whole point of putting it in NDAA in the first place: political cover for conservatives.
By they way, have you called a Senator today? You can leave a voicemail for Senator McCain reminding him he promised to do what the military leaders told him to. I think he forgot.