democrat. it was humbling, and i was honored to be in the room. i think what he hit on strongly was the values, integrity. you wear your values on your dog tags. it s an important part of what you do. here s john mccain. i respect john mccain. certainly his service. here he is talking about don t ask, don t tell with another view. i understand the opposition to it. and i ve had these debates and discussions. but the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, senator, we ought to change the policy, then i think we ought to consider seriously changing it. because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to. that was him a while ago, a couple years ago with me. here he is now. here he is now. this would be a substantial and controversial change to a policy that has been successful for two decades. it would also present yet another challenge to our military at a time of already
tremendous stress and strain. at this moment, immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the don t ask, don t tell policy. jon solts, what do you make of that? it seems like his policy has chang changed. john mccain is wrong he s fighting with himself. a few years ago he was open from what he s hearing from the military. now he decided this isn t the right thing to do now. let s talk about why it is the right thing to do. when the army wasn t meeting the recruiting roles, they were letting in criminals. this convicted felon murdered a family, and then two u.s. soldiers, and killed as a retraction to that or rebuttal. you tell me what s worth unit cohesion. let felons into the military to fill the quota. it makes absolutely no sense.
swearing in of scott brown up at the u.s. senate building. there it is right now. there s paul kirk, the appointed member behind him, leaving office at this moment. of course, john kery. john kerry just grabbed the senate desk of ted kennedy. and i believe before that daniel webster s. now you see the swearing-in ceremony. democracy continues in america. welcome back to hardball. president obama pledged congress to repeal the don t ask, don t tell policy. the chairman of the joint chiefs apparently goes along with that. michael mullen supports allowing gay service people to serve openly in the military. how easy will it be to eliminate the current rule. what would it mean for the military. let s turn to two real soldiers to iraq war veterans. i ll call you by both your names so we don t get confused.
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and he jumped in a tactical vehicle, drove outside the gate, hooked it up to a burning humvee, dragged it back in. that s a guy you want in the foxhole with you. we re talking about combat, real in it really in it. we were in the most volatile sector of baghdad. michael mullen supported repealing don t ask, don t t l tell earlier this week. it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. no matter how i look at this issue, i could not escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. for me, personally, it comes down to integrity. theirs is individuals, and ours as an institution. john, i was taken by it when i read the remarks later and heard him actually say