OUR BILL: Say this about Clinton: he always understood how to triangulate. The president who doubled the number of gay discharges form the military, signed the ban on HIV-positive immigrants, and jumped energetically on the Defense of Marriage Act, told Kerry to back marriage and civil union bans for gays in the campaign. Kerry, to his enormous credit, didn't go there. But then Kerry never presided over the execution of a retarded man for his own political purposes either.
As much as I'd like to agree with Andrew on this one, I just can't.
Kerry consistently said two things about gay marriage during the campaign: (1) he favored a federalist approach that would preserve the right of each state to make its own decision on the issue; and (2) he personally opposed the practice on traditional moral grounds. Taken together, those add up to one thing: state bans on gay marriage.
Telling a candidate that he has to get his policy prescriptions in line with his rhetoric if he wants to be taken seriously isn't triangulation. It's sound strategic advice. (It's also intellectually honest, by the way, which is something that those of us in the reality-based community are supposed to care about.) And until we Democrats are prepared to set aside sentimentality and follow that kind of tough-minded counsel even when it hurts -- especially when it hurts, actually -- people will have every right to question whether our candidates really mean what they say.