...Good news from the States. "Don't Ask Don't Tell" has been a thoroughly self-defeating and viciously bigoted policy ever since Clinton put it in place in the theory that if you can't stop bigots you can at least make it harder for them to find their targets. Even so, the fact that 31 Senators - including wretched homophobe and liar John McCain - chose to ignore the recommendations of the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon and the clear will of the people including their own voters in order to defend legalised bigotry is another stark reminder of just how out of their fucking minds the Republicans have become (though respect is due to the six GOP Senators who did the right thing this time around).
The only bad news in all of this is that it probably confirms that the new START treaty is doomed. This was very likely in any case, of course; there is just too much desire amongst Republican Senators to see Obama fail on the international stage. I'd say this seals it, though. My guess is that essentially the straight-up repeal bill was a quid pro quo for extending the entirety of the Bush tax cuts. I think the White House looked at the three things they most wanted passed during the lame duck session (DADT repeal, START, and DREAM) and decided the first of them was the only thing liable to ever work.
I'm not saying they made the wrong choice, and I certainly don't really want to think about whether I'd rather see the back of pointlessly hateful rules or a reduction in the number of times over the US can destroy the entire planet. Still, it would be nice to live in a world where the American Right could be persuaded not to be pricks to the gays or the Russians.
UPDATE: Whilst hardly brimming with confidence, Steve Benen's head count and post suggests I may be wrong to entirely give up on the treaty. Certainly, I think it's a lot easier to get from seven GOP votes to nine than it is to get from zero to two, because you already get to invoke the "B" word.
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