Senator McCain has been accused of backtracking on his stance as well. Several years ago, he stressed that he would be open to the idea of repeal if U.S. military leadership approved it. But once several of the top officials started speaking out against the policy, McCain moved the goal posts. He wanted to wait for a Pentagon-commissioned study on the ban.
That study’s findings were reported last week. And the preliminary data showed that service members would have little to no problem with openly gay colleagues. Even then, however, McCain was not sold. The study was leaked, he stressed (arguing that he couldn’t be sure about its veracity) and it didn’t measure the right issues. And even if the right study was conducted, McCain went on, Congress would need time to examine and debate it.
“You and I have not seen that study,” he said of the leaked findings. “And this study was directed on how to implement the repeal not whether the repeal should take place or not.”
“A thorough and complete study of the effects, not how to implement a repeal, but the effects on morale and battle effectiveness, that’s what I want,” he added. “And once we get this study we need to have hearings, and we need to examine it, and we need to look at whether it is the kind of study that we wanted.”
That’s such B.S., of course. This study does look at morale and battle effectiveness. McCain is lying. But, will we hear any push back from the White House? This will set the tone for the lame duck.
McCain peddled this lie before. But even, Marine Corps Commandant James Amos, who is no friend of repeal, wasn’t buying that line from McCain during his confirmation hearings in September:
Amos also countered Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) argument that the Pentagon’s study won’t tell military leaders if repeal would undermine military effectiveness, insisting that “at the end of the day, when all of this information comes to whoever is the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps in December….will be able to give his best military advise on that.”
“If this policy is changed. The last thing you’re going to see your Marine Corps do is try to step in and push it aside. That will simply not be the case,” Amos said. “There will be issues, we’re going to work through them.”
So, McCain knows better. He’s just obsessed with this issue.
According to Sam, McCain also addressed Cindy’ flip-flop on DADT. I’m sure she got an earful or two from her husband for speaking out against bullying. Sadly ironic.
