Dems and Military Leaders United Against McCain in DADT Repeal Hearings (video)

Sen. John "Grandpa Grumpy" McCain continued to reject the findings of the Pentagon Working Group's DADT study during the first day of hearings on the subject on Thursday. The ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee challenged the leadership abilities of both Admiral Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates as he called for more polling of the troops on "whether" DADT repeal should happen. Mullen dismissed McCain, saying you don't ask troops to vote on policy change.

McCain reiterated his usual argument that now is not the time to change the policy, with two wars going on, yadda, yadda, yadda.Grandpa Grumpy told the panel, "At this time, we should be inherently cautious about making any changes that would affect our military, and what changes we do make should be the product of careful and deliberate consideration."

Mullen countered, "Repeal of the law will not prove unacceptable risk to military readiness. Unit cohesion will not suffer if our units are well led, and families will not encourage their loved ones to leave the service in droves." He added, "War does not stifle change, it demands it."

Defense Secretary Gates told McCain, "If not now, when? As I look ahead in the world, I don't see the world being a safer, easier place to live in where our troops are necessarily under less stress."

At one point McCain insults Admiral Mullen by pointing out that he is not in a commend position. Mullen did an excellent job of putting the future spokesman for Depends in his place:

"With all due respect, Mr. Chairman and Sen. McCain, it is true that, as chairman, I am not in charge of troops. But I have commanded three ships, a carrier battle group and two fleets. And I was most recently a service chief myself. For more than 40 years I have made decisions that affected and even risked the lives of young men and women.

"You do not have to agree with me on this issue. But don't think for one moment that I haven't carefully considered the impact of the advice I give on those who will have to live with the decisions that that advice informs. I would not recommend repeal of this law if I did not believe in my soul that it was the right thing to do for our military, for our nation and for our collective honor."

 I don't know about you all, but seeing all these old guard military leaders and politicians standing up for us queers kinda gives me the chills. Think Progress posted this video showing how McCain got schooled yesterday on senate and military procedures. Watch as McCain whines about not having enough time for debate and ignores issues that were directly addressed in the troop survey.

You can watch today's hearing on C-SPAN or at cspan.org.

Related articles

• DADT: McCain slams survey, then uses it to make his case against repeal (dailykos.com)
• Watch: Anderson Cooper asks Lieberman - How Much of Opposition to 'DADT' Repeal is Folks Who Just Don't Like Gay People? (towleroad.com)
• Watch: Joe Lieberman Disagrees with McCain's Bigotry-Based Opposition to 'DADT' Repeal (towleroad.com)
• The Shamelessness Of John McCain (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• "McCain Exudes Grumpiness At DADT Hearing" and related posts (wonkroom.thinkprogress.org)