Eccentric Flower talk:200906/Speeches and False Alarms

Joy:

Right now I feel like Obama knows how to talk the talk, but that is about it.

-- 16:41, 30 June 2009 (BST)

Iain:

From the speech: I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination -- (applause) -- to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear....

That's pretty much a paragraph of solid lie. Yes, he has called on Congress to repeal DOMA, that's true. However, he did not have a responsibility to defend it -- he could simply have directed the Justice department to say that they felt that the law should be overturned and that they refused to defend it. Administrations have done so, or more accurately, tried to do so in the past on other laws. It almost certainly wouldn't have worked -- the courts tend to direct the federal government to defend laws in such cases -- but he didn't even try. And to say that they have a responsibility to do so in a way that doesn't "exacerbate old divides" is a rather delicate way of dancing around the fact that this is exactly what his Justice department did.

I don't think his heart is in this at all, beyond a certain point. Even so, for all that he's done wrong, he's done, or tried to do, quite a bit right. (It's going to be vastly entertaining to see how many seconds the "Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act" lasts, if passed [and it won't be], before a court smacks it down because it's in clear and direct conflict with DOMA.) I don't necessarily disagree with how he's handling "Don't ask, don't tell", though I do wish he'd sit down and simply state his strategy -- my guess is that he's not simply suspending discharges, which he could do, because that would both piss off the military and allow Congress to duck the issue, and it's not a stable long-term solution. I do think, as far as DOMA goes, that we'll be sacrificed repeatedly on the "I'm going to use my political capital on things that are much more important than something like DOMA which, after all, affects only a very small number of people." And frankly, I can't even say that I fault him for that. I just wish he'd be honest about it.

And apart from my own particular issues, I just wish he'd do something on the security front to show that he's better for the country than Bush. He's not only defending Bush policy on things like official secrets, but he's trying to expand it in some truly appalling and alarming ways. This is not what he should be doing.

-- 16:53, 30 June 2009 (BST)

ProfRobert:

@Iain: Just an aside -- courts won't strike provisions of a statute because they conflict with an earlier statute. First, they'll try to harmonize the statutes to read them together, but if they can't, they'll likely give more effect to the later statute. A constitional example of this is the holding that Congress can override the 11th Amendment's immunization of states from suit in federal court when legislating pursuant to the 14th Amendment, but not when legislating pursuant to Article I. The theory is that the 14th Amendment implicitly modified the scope of the 11th Amendment.

-- 18:13, 30 June 2009 (BST)