Doug PollardHarley Dennett on Sarah Palin & DADT
DOUG: Now bizarre as it may seem, the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination next time out is. . . . somebody called: Sarah Palin. Whom you may or may not have heard of; her credentials for the job were on display last week when her daughter Willow started slinging the word “faggot” on Facebook. The hockey-mum sprang to her defence. Joining me on the line now is our Washington correspondent: Harley Dennett. How did that one play-out over there, Harley?
HARLEY: Good morning, Doug.
DOUG: Good morning.
HARLEY: It – m’mm, caused a lot of stir in the gay and lesbian circles. As you can imagine. It’s kind-of par-for-the-course on the Republican side. This will actually win her votes. Even though it wasn’t Mamma Grizzly herself, it was just her 16-year-old daughter this played very well in the Tea Party movement.
DOUG: How does that work – I mean, you’re saying Willow is saying what they’d like to say if they could, if they dared – or they say it anyway?
HARLEY: To them it’s a liberty thing. Obviously we know ‘cause we have the same thing in Australia, that phrases like: that’s so gay. Or: you’re so gay. Are fairly common in schools and it’s fairly ubiquitous in the United States as well. Throwing the word “faggot” around as a general insult also is fairly common.
DOUG: M’mm?
HARLEY: So when 16-year-old little Willow got on Facebook and defended her mother’s – Sarah Palin’s Alaska show, m’mm – against a critic who said that it was failing so hard right now - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: You can put the air-quotes around that – by saying, first: You’re so gay – and: You’re such a faggot. That was part of their culture. Completely obvious to the fact there’s this huge other campaign going on in America trying to clamp-down on anti-gay and homophobic bullying.
DOUG: Particularly in the schools and colleges.
HARLEY: The suicides, yes.
DOUG: Yes. Because of the suicides.
HARLEY: That just – apparently – missed half of America. They did not notice that, notice how continuing to do that could be quite offensive to people.
DOUG: You mentioned about Sarah’s show?
HARLEY: M’mm.
DOUG: Right; this – sort of, Alaska show. I thought it did really well when it launched?
HARLEY: The first week it did. It got 3-million viewers which is pretty good for a cable channel programme. I mean, basically it’s like a travel log. Of Alaska – but you wouldn’t think it would get a very high rating to begin with. But she is oddly enough, still the leading Republican presidential candidate.
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: I’ve written many times in the press about how she has destroyed her chances of becoming the Republican candidate and every time I write that the next day something happens and she’s right back up there again. She generates all this attention, all these ratings and it was at 3-million the first episode. Then it went down – like, way down.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
HARLEY: To under a million and it’s jumped back up again, for its 3rd-episode. I’d like to say there’s a trend there, but I can’t. There isn’t really one.
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: You can’t tell whether or not this is all about the fact that people seriously think she’s going to win the Republican nomination for president. If you look at her other daughter, 20-year-old Bristol who got very far in the US-version of “Dancing With The Stars”; even though the judges said that she was the worst dancer they’d ever seen she kept being put on there.
DOUG: This is like Ronald Regan – I mean, Ronald Regan came out of nowhere and nobody took his candidacy seriously. Everybody said he was a total klutz, everybody laughed at him and he won the presidency. Are we in danger of ending-up with a Palin presidency?
HARLEY: I think we are. (and) It’s really quite sad because no Republican, no leading commentator or right-leaning person in America [indistinct] she is just unqualified to be president. Because she wields so much power in the Republican Party right now and no-one’s willing to directly challenge her at this point. Except of course, Karger. The gay, Republican candidate.
DOUG: Yes.
HARLEY: Sad to say, he doesn’t have really much of a chance. His best chance is to get on televised debates. But – m’mm, no-one’s taking her on at this point. Judging by these ratings and judging by the fact that she can defend her daughter’s use of the word “faggot” and no-one blinks an eye, amongst all of her core constituency - - -
DOUG: This is all too scary. Think of that varnished fingernail being on a nuclear button. Ooh, I don’t like the sound of that at all. Perhaps we should go on holiday to North Korea for a while?
HARLEY: [laughs]
DOUG: Let’s leave that for a moment; I find the whole Palin thing too horrible to contemplate, any further. Don’t ask, don’t tell – now, we would have thought by now this would’ve been repealed. It’s still lurching along. The latest I’ve seen is this report that’s come from the Pentagon which comes from the survey they did of troops, which is saying nobody gives a damn. Very much. (and) There wouldn’t be any problem if they did get rid of - - -
HARLEY: Yeah. They sent-out 400-thousand surveys, for troops active in the service. They got just a little over a quarter back. Which says most people really weren’t interested in the first place, dealing with this issue. Wasn’t on their radar. Of the results they did get back something like 70 per cent didn’t care. They’d literally written down they thought repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would have zero impact on their professional life – on their ability for their unit to [indistinct] their missions and do their engineering – and all the other things that service members do. But – m’mm, we saw a really high spike in the Marines and the army Infantry where they really do care. That was also the group (sic) that said they’d never met a gay person. They’d never served with a gay or lesbian person before so I think we’ve got a case here where – m’mm [indistinct] something strange and different, not sure quite how to take it.
DOUG: Well, they’ve never knowingly served with a gay person.
HARLEY: Yeah. Well - - -
DOUG: I think is probably the thing; this is one of those Catch-22s isn’t it?
HARLEY: All of them have never knowingly - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: - - - served with a gay person.
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: Like, in the air force and the navy well you kind-of know – m’mm, you don’t say anything. I mean, you know – in the army and the marines you’re not even allowed that level of – well, we assume that person is. Because if we assume that person is then we’d better get rid of them anyway. Just to be sure. It’s quite a different world.
DOUG: I think – you know, thinking way-way-way-back I think it was pretty much the same way with the British armed forces. The Navy and the RAF were pretty relaxed about the whole thing and it was the Army – the real die-hards, the ones who would die in a ditch rather than let gays in. (and) Yet when it was all passed and it was all perfectly okay for you to be gay and in the Army nothing really happened.
HARLEY: There was a court case in Britain, I believe it was the EU Human Rights Court.
DOUG: M’mm?
HARLEY: Overturned it and it did that in one day – like, a big build-up and then in one day it was gone. Equal benefits, equal service – across the board, everything – the US is taking the exact opposite approach and it’s the exact opposite of which Australia suggested they do. Which is, if you do it do it quickly.
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: Tell everybody discrimination isn’t right, isn’t acceptable; here, they’re taking the exact opposite approach. They’re stretching it out. Even when Congress if it does – like, repeal it. It’ll still technically be in-place until they decide – like, it’ll take a couple of years for them to decide – okay, we’re ready to start implementing it now. (and) Then after that the [indistinct] you’re going to give gay members all the benefits – like, you’re not going to get full-housing benefits. That kind-of-thing. So they’re going to get paid less and then on top of that, they’re not going to include sexual orientation in the other lists of – m’mm, anti-discrimination measures they had like [indistinct] sex, national origin and religion. Because that might antagonise – they explicitly say in their report, they think that straight members – straight troops – will think that that’s unfair and that will give them (sic) special rights.
DOUG: This sounds like the way the Australian government is doing gay marriage.
HARLEY: It does.
DOUG: Doing it by very, very small degrees and giving-in to everybody else along the way. Who’ve the slightest objection. I think most people even if they’re against gay marriage would prefer the: Big Bang. Let’s do it – let’s get it over with, we’ve more important things to think about.
HARLEY: The irony of this is, it was actually the Australian government who told the US government: don’t pander, pussy-foot around it rip that bandaid off and fix it once-and-for-all.
DOUG: Yep.
HARLEY: (and) Do it all in one go. So, they already know that message – the Australian government and the US knows it. They’re both taking this softly-softly approach ‘cause they don’t want to offend – like, a certain percentage. (and) In America they now know what that percentage is – between 15 and 30 per cent said that they would leave the military if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed.
DOUG: Can they afford to? With unemployment being what it is, in the States.
HARLEY: Of course they won’t.
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: Some of the questions – military spouses, they were also surveyed. They said that their family readiness – no description of what that term means – their family readiness would go down. Would be negatively impacted if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed.
DOUG: Well I’ve no idea what that means either, Harley. This is dragging on, ridiculously. We’re going to have to leave it there for today. Keeping our fingers crossed they do get a move-on with this thing and in the meantime, thanks very much for joining us today.
HARLEY: It’s a pleasure, Doug.
DOUG: That was Harley Dennett there. Our correspondent in Washington DC. The reason he’s there is that his partner is in the RAAF and he was moved over to the USA so we’ve an inside track there on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. A close-up view.
