Meghan McCain Continues to Impress, President Obama Continues to Disappoint

Fresh off his Nobel Peace Prize announcement, President Obama addressed thousands of gay right protestors marching at our nation’s capital this past Saturday night. It was a rousing speech, as always, filled with promises and strong, assertive language.

But it was an empty speech, void of action, conviction, or credibility. He promised to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the controversial Clinton-era policy of identity suppression in the military. But it was a promise he’d made before. And it was a promise he has thus far utterly failed to act upon.

As Andrew Sullivan writes:

All I can say is: the president gave a speech he could have given at any point in the last three years. No one in that room could disagree with any of the things he said. I sure don't (with the exception of the hate crimes hooey). And he said it well and movingly. Like we didn't know he could do that.

But the point of electing a president who pledged to actually do things is to hold him to account, and to see if he is willing to take any risk of any kind to actually do something. I had a few prior tests of his seriousness or signs that he gets it, a few ways to judge if this speech had anything new or specific or clear. He failed every test.

Meghan McCain, equally appalled, writes:

Obama offered no timeline for phasing out this policy and, as usual, no real specifics. But the president verbalized his commitment to ending it—which is not insignificant [...]During the election, Obama pledged that the very first thing he would do as president would be to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Although I thought it was an ambitious promise, I believed him. It's now almost a year into his presidency and other than making speeches, nothing has happened.

There’s no two ways around it: Sullivan and McCain are spot on. This administration has thus far been absolutely abysmal in promoting social equality. Abysmal. Crumbling economy notwithstanding, don’t get on a pulpit and expect us to be happy with negligence. Don’t say all the right things and expect us to be satisfied with gross inaction. Don’t try to appease the progressive electorate that struggled to put you in office. Don’t make empty promises you have no intention of honoring.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the daughter of Obama’s Republican challenger from last November has a better stance on gay rights than our own Democratic President. If the Nobel Peace Price was intended to push Obama to, you know, actually promote peace by ending our two wars, what award do we need to give him to promote gay rights? What will it take, and how much longer must we wait?

As Meghan McCain continues to assert herself at the forefront of the fight for gay rights, Obama continues to disappoint. Maybe he thinks repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" is unwise politically, regardless of his personal beliefs. Maybe he thinks a gay rights agenda will hurt him in the future. This may be so, but his insulting failure to act—on the eve of National Coming Out Day, no less—certainly isn’t winning him any new progressive allies.

Obama has the potential to promote real, substantive change. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he'll be acting on that potential any time soon.

Meghan McCain and the Future of Progressive Politics

My new theory is that Meghan McCain is one sociology course away from becoming a raging liberal.

Seriously. This woman continues to amaze me. In her most recent blog post at The Daily Beast, McCain derides the Republican Party’s continued attempts to legislate sexuality. She writes:

“Daughters of Republican politicians aren’t expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it—as if there were some strange chastity belt automatically attached to us female offspring. God forbid anyone talk realistically about life experiences and natural, sexual instincts. Nope, the answer is always abstinence.”

Moreover,

“Here’s what I’ve never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life. But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all. Actually, the best way to prevent abortions is to educate people about birth control and make it widely and easily accessible. True, abstinence is the only way to fully prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Still, the problem with abstinence-only education is that it does not make teenagers and young adults more knowledgeable about all the issues they face if or when they have sex—physically and emotionally.”

As I wrote before, I’m not down with the whole pro-life bit. But her honest discussion of sexuality, sexual desire, and birth control is largely on point. I think most Americans can agree that we’d like to keep the number of abortions in this country as low as possible. And as McCain points out, the solution lies in healthy sex education and access to birth control, not abstinence and the control of (mostly women’s) sexuality.

I’m tempted to email her the following message: “Dear Meghan, Race is a social construct. Let’s discuss.”—and just see what she says. Or maybe something about patriarchy. Or racial inequality in the criminal justice system. Or the reproduction of gender norms in the classroom. Or federal policy and the creation of inner city ghettoes. You know, like basic tenets of sociology that ring true empirically. It might spark conversations—and questions—that she never had before.

McCain’s comments point to the inherent fragility of the Republican Party’s big business-religious zealot coalition. They also point to the growing subset of self-identifying Republicans that sit on the fence between conservatism and liberalism—a subset that progressives can actively engage with, and (gasp) even learn from. Maybe we can build new coalitions. Maybe this is a positive step for the future of progressive politics.

Meghan McCain > Barack Obama?

Yeah I said it. Meghan McCain has been doing some serious re-branding of the Republican Party recently, much to the disdain of many party bigwigs. She’s basically giving the Republicans a blueprint to attract young voters, not unlike what Obama so efficiently did this last election cycle.

In a blog post, McCain, very eloquently, writes:

“I am a woman who despises labels and boxes and stereotypes. Recently, I seemed to have rocked a few individuals within my party by saying that I am a pro-life, pro-gay-marriage Republican. So if anyone is still confused, let me spell it out for you. I believe life begins at conception and I believe that people who fall in love should have the option to get married. Lest we forget, our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, grants the same rights to everyone in this country—“All men are created equal.” If you think certain rights should not apply to certain people, then you are saying those people are not equal. People may always have a difference of opinion on certain lifestyles, but championing a position that wants to treat people unequally isn't just un-Republican. At its fundamental core, it's un-American.”

So I’m not really into the whole “life begins at conception” point of view, but I can definitely agree with her points about gay marriage. She goes on to blast Obama for not supporting gay marriage, and she’s right. Obama has consistently been pretty luke-warm when it comes to equality for homosexuals. The gay activist that says “this sounds a lot like separate but equal” is 100% correct. Unfortunately, with the economic crisis, it’s going to be difficult to mobilize and push Obama to take a more progressive stance on this issue. But that doesn’t mean we should stop. What it does mean is that we should watch out for Republicans, like McCain, who might be able to alter the national discussion and change the way her party attracts voters.

Unfortunately for Meghan, she’s gotta deal with the structure of the American political system i.e. the fact that our “democracy” is (in practice) only a two-party system. Where are all the religious zealots and Chuck-Norris-succession-movement-loving nutjobs going to go if the Republicans embrace gays? They’ll start a civil war before they move to Canada. I’m actually serious about this; Meghan McCain and Michael Steele have both made admirable efforts at re-branding the rhetoric of the party, but they are beholden to larger political forces that will inevitably make their efforts futile. The Republicans simply can’t afford to alienate that section of the electorate. And I don’t see them taking Meghan McCain’s advice seriously, either.

Or, who knows, maybe this is just her push to get her own talk show. And you know what? I might tune in.