A not-so-lame duck

The odd ducks of Congress, or rather a majority of them, waddled out their last days of 2010 with a busy agenda. The media, the average voter, and even members of Congress throw this term "lame duck" around as if it is a perfectly worthless part of the legislative calendar. And indeed it usually is such. While everyone else applauds President Obama (which is much deserved) for the victories that came out of the 2010 Lame Duck, let's look instead at the few, but faithful, conservatives who might as well not have even shown up because they clearly had no intention of working until Christmas, fulfilling their term, and passing measures of progress.
I want to look briefly at a few of the measures that we saw come out of the Lame Duck and the rhetoric/argument that led to their ultimate passage.
DADT was a long time coming. Ultimately, I predict history will likely regard the reversal of DADT as giving more Americans the rights and respect they deserve. When homosexuality affects a family or individual, it is expected that they would have strong feelings on the issue. But when it comes to providing openness and respect to our soliders I fail to see how this becomes such a polarizing, ideological issue. Robert Gates has shown his approval for the repeal; several studies published recently show that many of those serving as well a Pentagon studies all affirm the belief that DADT will not negatively affect our armed forces. For those who agree with the repeal it can be difficult to understand what the final rationale was for those who voted against it. So I took the liberty of looking into the rationale of our very own Senator John Thune. Here is Thune's statement after much thought and deliberation:

Thune said he voted against the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell after considering the issue and studying a Pentagon report that called for removing the policy, which was enacted in December 1993.

“The thing to me is, this is a major change,” Thune said. “Why would you change it?

What? That's the best he could come up with?

Then it gets better. Those who were pissed about the end result of DADT decided to take it out on the START treaty vote. Once again...WHAT? That's the best you can come up with? You could write a book on the signal that sends on American foreign policy. Fortunately, sanity prevailed and the Senate reached the 2/3 majority they needed to ratify our end of the treaty. Again, Thune voted no.

These are just examples of the tidbits coming out of Washington over the last few weeks that continued to baffle me. What is most baffling is the clear and expressed opposition to issues that seem to achieve better outcomes for citizens and government alike. And if the opposition was doing it just to make a point, well, then they did a piss poor job.

I spoke with a current state legislator recently about some issues that we'll see presented out in Pierre this year. The politics of this session will be perhaps less intense, and more amusing that recent years. I based this on recent Argus and Rapid City Journal articles giving previews of bills that may be introduced this session on immigration and possibly Sharia law. What is not amusing is the proposed 5% cut to education.
More on that later.

For now, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Keep your stick on the ice as we head into the thick of South Dakota winter and an interesting legislative session.