In a rare moment of ebullience, President Barack Obama marked what is likely to be the final day of public events in the first half of his term with the repeal of the 17-year old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gays from serving openly in the military — the most symbolic of his legislative victories thus far.
On display before a packed audience at the signing ceremony was a president who took his party’s massive loss in the midterm elections as a mandate from voters to stake out a clear position in the ideological middle.
But if the Senate ratifies, as expected, the START nuclear arms agreement today — despite Republican leaders' repeated attempts to derail it — Obama will leave Washington for his Hawaiian holiday vacation and complete his first two years as president, with an impressive collection of lame-duck accomplishments: repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," a piece of landmark civil rights legislation; a massive bipartisan compromise tax bill; and confirmation of as many as 19 judicial nominees, some of whom had been sidetracked for six months.
On Wednesday afternoon, as soon as the Senate completes its last remaining items of business, Obama is expected to hold a year-end news conference highlighting the “productivity” of this Congress and outlining the work ahead.
This final appearance is likely to be a victory lap of sorts, but it remains to be seen whether the next two years, when Republicans take control of the House and sharply reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate, will be as productive.
At Wednesday morning’s ceremony, more than 500 onlookers cheered as Obama signed the "don't ask" repeal into law. The president declared that the bill confirms “we are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.' We are a nation that says ‘out of many we are one.’”
It was the first event in Obama's presidency devoted to the issue of gay rights, and it fulfills a campaign promise that appeared to be doomed after a defense bill containing the repeal failed in September — and in light of the Democrats’ “shellacking” at the hands of Republicans in November’s midterm elections.
But in an unexpected reversal of fortune, the post-election narrative, initially seen as a disaster for the White House has dramatically turned in the president's favor.
A lame duck session that many expected to be stagnant produced an $857-billion tax cut compromise the White House has called a major victory, the repeal of the ban on gays in the military and will soon deliver the ratification of the START nuclear arms treaty — all White House priorities for 2009.
And Obama's post-election call for bipartisanship, made during an introspective, morning-after press conference, is likely to be vindicated both by the tally of his legislative achievements during the lame duck session, and the GOP votes that helped him overturn the ban on gays in the military — a major win that helps soothe a Democratic base agitated by White House compromises with the right.
Obama said that though the service of gay Americans had been obscured throughout history, “at every turn, at every crossroads in out paths, we know gay Americans fought just as hard — gave just as much — to protect this nation and the ideas for which it stands.”
And he pointedly thanked House and Senate Democrats and Republicans who revived the seemingly dead legislation and voted to “put conviction ahead of politics to get this done together.”
This victory, bipartisan yet largely free of compromise, is particularly sweet for some Democrats who grudgingly swallowed a bitter pill just days earlier: voting for the president's decision to extend tax cuts for the wealthy in order to get GOP votes for an extension of long-term unemployment insurance.
That compromise was one of several Obama made this year with Republicans that stuck in the craws of some Democrats — a sweeping health care overhaul that lacked a public option, to name just one. And liberal critics complained loudly about the legislative death of other priorities, including comprehensive immigration reform and climate change legislation.
Nevertheless, the president previewed his likely remarks in a forthcoming news conference Wednesday afternoon when he praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for leading in one of the most “productive” congressional sessions in American history.
That productivity, however, is unlikely to continue as Republican leaders, emboldened by their big midterm wins, have made it clear that their top priority is a massive effort to repeal and dismantle Obama’s signature health reform legislation.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated that the president would not address the highly publicized intention of Republicans to wage war against the president’s legislative priorities. But Gibbs said Obama would challenge Republicans — as he has done throughout the lame-duck session — to set aside politics to do “what is in the national interest.”
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Wednesday, December 22nd 2010 at 2:56PM
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