DADT / DREAM

Win.

From Pres. Obama's "Organizing for America" email:

Moments ago, the Senate voted to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
When that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it, and this discriminatory law will be repealed.
Gay and lesbian service members -- brave Americans who enable our freedoms -- will no longer have to hide who they are.
The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one...
But this victory is also personal.
I will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.
But I know my story would not be possible without the sacrifice and struggle of those who came before me -- many I will never meet, and can never thank.
I know this repeal is a crucial step for civil rights, and that it strengthens our military and national security. I know it is the right thing to do.

Politically, Sen. Lieberman got the win. So what. He has atoning to do in the name of his own piddling opportunistic legacy. This is the pragmatic president's work, however. There are obvious failures, at least in the short term, but the victories, subtle and grand, are adding up to a great presidency, two and a half years in. He's not a crass pragmatist; he's a philosophical pragmatist.

Fail.

From Pres. Obama's "Organizing for America" email:

But the rightness of our cause does not guarantee success, and today, celebration of this historic step forward is tempered by the defeat of another -- the DREAM Act. I am incredibly disappointed that a minority of senators refused to move forward on this important, commonsense reform that most Americans understand is the right thing for our country. On this issue, our work must continue.

The US Senate's place in history. The coming 112th Congress won't step in the direction of basic decency partly because anti-immigrant demagoguery helped many of them get elected. But in the end they're on the slippery back end of the vaunted "arc of history." Despite his harsh statements about DREAM, I think Lindsey Graham knows this. "Comprehensive immigration reform" is a crucial conversation to be had by sane people, it must be admitted, regardless of whatever dog whistles some may think that phrase possesses. The tragedy, of course, is in the second-class treatment of human beings who view themselves as de facto American, while the anti-immigration faction jerks them around with specious claims about what it means to be de jure American.

This reminds me that I still need to produce that post on the Republican's capture of moral relativism....