Aug 21, 2009  |  By: KEVIN NAFF  | COMMENTS     

AFTER MORE THAN a decade of analysis, study and debate over how the nation got stuck with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” former President Bill Clinton explained it all last week.

It’s our fault.

Clinton, speaking at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, was interrupted by audience member Lane Hudson, an activist and D.C. resident justifiably angry about Clinton’s role in the debacle of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Kudos to Hudson for making a scene and lobbing a question about the military’s gay ban. His interruption of the former president was consistent with Netroots’ stated mission of “amplifying progressive voices.” Speakers who expect decorum and order should probably avoid Netroots events.

“You want to talk about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” Clinton replied angrily, shaking his finger in Hudson’s direction. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military. … And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting me some support in the Congress.”

One-time Clinton ally David Mixner excoriated the former president in a blog post this week.

“The president’s job was to protect an unpopular minority from the tyranny of a majority mob and he failed to do it,” Mixner wrote. “He gave in to the mob and then blamed us. His failure to grasp that this is a civil rights movement and not a lobby in Washington is indicative of his lack of understanding of this struggle.”

Clinton’s remarks, while oversimplifying the struggle over the gay ban, contained at least one kernel of truth: Gay rights groups were criticized at the time for being “asleep at the switch” by pro-gay allies on the Hill.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation and National Gay & Lesbian Task Force were criticized in 1993 for focusing their lobbying efforts on a broad federal civil rights bill, rather than on the gays-in-the-military fight that was already raging.

“They expected the White House to take care of the military thing,” one House staffer told the Blade in January 1993. “They thought Clinton would issue his order and it would sail through with little or no difficulty.”

That proved wishful thinking, of course, and Clinton caved to a so-called compromise in a blow to the concept of civilian leadership of the military.  

CLINTON WENT ON to address his signing of DOMA while speaking at Netroots. “I thought the question of whether gays should marry should be left up to states and religious organizations.” He said he was trying to head off a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage.

At Netroots, Clinton criticized the 11 state ballot initiatives in 2004 that banned same-sex marriage as a cynical strategy to turn out the base vote for President Bush that year.

But his remarks last week omitted Clinton’s own twisted history on the issue.

Clinton not only signed DOMA, but he bragged about it in 1996 campaign radio ads broadcast in the South. The ads declared that Clinton’s support for DOMA demonstrated his commitment to traditional values.

And in 2004, Newsweek disclosed that Clinton urged Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry to support state ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage. Kerry avoided making a sweeping public statement of support, but he did back such efforts in both his home state of Massachusetts and in Missouri.

All this is typical Clintonian double-speak and equivocation. Last month, he made headlines for supposedly announcing his support for same-sex marriage.

“I think all these states that do it should do it,” he said, adding that he does not believe same-sex marriage is “a federal question.”

That position, of course, ignores the scores of federal benefits of marriage unavailable even to legally married same-sex couples. This new Democratic fallback position of “it’s a state issue, there’s no federal role for marriage” is a cowardly punt. Democrats know that “states’ rights” is an emotionally resonant buzz term for conservatives and they figure it’s easier to tout that than to utter the words “I support same-sex marriage.”

Asked if he personally supported same-sex marriage, Clinton replied, “Yeah. I personally support people doing what they want to do. I think it’s wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that [same-sex marriage].”

The issue is not supporting people “doing what they want to do.” It’s affirming that our loving relationships are equal to our straight counterparts and deserving of the government’s support and benefits.

CLINTON’S OVERALL RECORD is decidedly mixed on LGBT issues. The truth about his legacy lies somewhere between civil rights champion ...