We’ll have more about today’s historical announcement by the President, but since 3:00pm ET, we’ve seen some very interesting the commentary from around the Internets. Taking a cue from our first excerpted writer, it seems prudent to sample some of that commentary here.
Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast:
The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama’s journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it…
Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That’s why we elected him. That’s the change we believed in.
With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the administration’s refusal to defend in court the federal ban on same-sex marriage, and Wednesday’s endorsement of same-sex marriage federalism, Obama is the most pro-LGBT rights president in US history. Nevertheless, the position he articulated today accepts the legitimacy of states like North Carolina subjecting the rights of gays and lesbians to a popular vote.
Richard Socarides, The New Yorker:
I suspect that at the end of this national conversation the result will be a good one, and the process, including Obama’s painstakingly slow evolution, will have been a positive experience for the country. Hopefully, it will lead us in a positive direction—which, after all, is the job of a President.
Yeah, I think this is a whole bunch of cynical political theater. The president’s change in position could make some real change in people’s lives, but it certainly could have helped a lot more people four years ago.
It’s unclear whether his larger statement will tackle DOMA more substantively; however, it is the first time a sitting President has said that he thinks same sex couples should be allowed to marry at all, even in the ways currently limited by federal and state law. It’s a start.
Greg Sargent, Washington Post:
I don’t know how this will play among culturally conservative swing voters who are supposedly going to be alienated by it, but I’ll tell you this much: I’m looking forward to finding out. I suspect that when Obama discovers that the political fallout isn’t as fearsome as people said it might be, he’ll ask himself why on earth he dallied so long about it. If and when this issue is revealed to be a no-brainer to the American mainstream, it will have proven a significant political moment, too — a huge victory for the left, which has argued for this for years now.
In at least one crucial way then, Obama’s announcement stops short of a full reversal of policy. In the past, Obama has said that he thinks that “gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights and legal protections that straight couples already enjoy,” but does not endorse same-sex marriage per se. This is not a coherent position. There simply is no legal category outside of marriage that grants same-sex couples all the rights and legal protections that straight couples enjoy—not civil unions, not domestic partnership arrangements. Only marriage recognized at the federal level and in all fifty states would do that.
Ronald Brownstein, National Journal:









