BIG F@#KING DOH!

Rep. Barney Frank on LGBT legislation:

“Next year there’s no chance of anything happening,” he said of pro-LGBT legislation. “There’s zero chance.” This in the most recent Washington Blade.

Washington Blade

Is this some kind of “light bulb” moment? I can’t believe Rep. Frank is stating anything that most of us haven’t already figured out. We blew it…blew our chance to make major gains effecting literally millions of Americans. Instead, we got a health plan, with no guts, that’s essentially a gift to the insurance companies.

How can this be? The Obama administration is chastised by the right as Marxist, madmen with a socialist agenda. Most of us on the left think President Obama has sold us out by not standing firm and tall against the crap tea party zealots and others have dished out. This administration had the opportunity to have the greatest legislative session coinciding with a presidency since LBJ. Yes…it still was an amazing 111th Congress, but by the estimation of many of us, it fell far short.

Where did this administration go wrong? Blatant lies were never effectively refuted. The campaigns of misinformation and disinformation put forth by far right conservatives and by Faux News and its cronies were allowed to stand. Revisionism and prevarication and a stiff neck have been a pretty damn effective formula for the right (just listen to Mitch McConnell & John Boehner) and it seems we on the left have no answer for it.

In President’s Obama’s haste to make compromise a possibility, we overlooked reality. There was never a sincere intent on the part of Republicans to compromise. As soon as it became obvious that there would be no cooperation, the Democratic controlled Congress, with President Obama’s support, should have set forth their own agenda irrespective of the conservative nay-sayers and their obstructionist bent. ENDA should have been at the top of the list. It was doable.

Granted, the Senate cloture issue made automatic passage of legislation difficult, but it’s hard to believe we could not persuade, with a big enough carrot, two Republican Senators to go along with a Democratic majority. I don’t know what that might have entailed, but it’s hard to imagine us having any better odds for legislative successes than we had in the 111th.

So…we may get DODT in the lame duck session…we may even get DOMA repealed through the judicial process. But, ENDA…essentially the granddaddy of all LGBT legislation, the one bill which would truly have helped the greatest number of Americans in the most substantial way, has been allowed to languish. No thanks to Rep. Frank. And now there’s a large Republican majority in the House and a much narrower Democrative margin in the Senate.
Just f@#king great!

Equality for all? Not happening…not now!