and gave us all of the access that we wanted. wrong assumptions that people made. he was always conservative on abortion and maybe this is coming through now. maybe he was pandering by the way, said that he was for getting rid of the don t ask, don t tell if the military came through. but i think that only more socially conservative. well he s arizona republican. he s an arizona republican. if you re going to go out there as the man of principlep i m the guy who sticks to my guys, i m the maverick, i adopt care what the party says. if you follow the military leadership, never mind don t ask, don t tell but what the military leadership on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty? the whole national security operator says, pass in treaty. and he s saying no to it. so what s his problem. i think that it s personal. what s the certainly in. he lost the election. he s mad at everybody? he misses with your head. just does. and john kerry s still struggling to deal with 2004. here is j
lesbian, heterosexual or it doesn t matter. we re service members first, we re professionals. we follow the law. and the military has seen much more radical transitions with the racial integration, the integration of women, and now we finally have a policy that 80% of the country supports, 70% of the service doesn t care one way or the other. the military is going to implement this policy beautifully, i have no doubt about that. lieutenant colonel victor fehrenbach, katie miller, mike almy, captain hopkins, thank you for being here. it s a real honor to have you hear. appreciate it. congratulations. as you may be able to tell from that sound, this is a live broadcast in front of a big, beautiful audience at the 92nd street y in new york city. we have so much more to come this hour. rolling stone s matt taibbi is here to talk about shame and the senate and the art of getting things done in politics.
martha: all righty, on a monday morning, are you keeping score, folks? we have a win, loss and draw for the white house, down to the wire on a final issue for the lame duck congress, victory in repooling the don t ask, don t tell policy and, a tie on tax cuts, with an extension of unemployment benefits and defeat dream act and today a crucial treaty is on the table and that is how we start a brand-new hour, as the sort of snowy haze is over the white house this morning, good morning, bill hemmer. good morning, everybody. bill: i m bill, martha. martha: yes, you are! bill: we have it worked out! right? okay, the start treaty, a pact with russia to slow the arms race between washington and moscow, leading republicans have serious concerns about the treaty. martha: but it s a vital piece of the president s agenda and he talked about it in great detail, mike emmanuel is live at the
few steps that need to be made before these people can come out openly. that s right, tamron. let s tell folks the white house announced robert gibbs is taking the podium for his daily briefing that the president will in all likelihood sign the repeal of don t ask, don t tell, on wednesday. we all know the president delayed his annual family vacation to hawaii for the start treaty, for don t ask, don t tell. and a few other big ticket items the lame duck congress is kicking out one after the other before they go away for the holiday themselves. but there are steps that have to be taken before don t ask, don t tell, the repeal of don t ask, don t tell is in full effect. and gays can openly serve in the military. a number of questions for gibbs on the subject. there are a host of lawyers looking at the legal issues of implementation. the steps are as follows. first the military has to revise its guidelines, its standards and training to adjust for the new regulations that have been
here some are stories to watch today on abc news. an environmental watchdog group says drinking water in 31 of 35 cities may contain a dangerous carcinogen. the report will be released later today. a federal report on birth rates is expected to show the number of babies born in 2008 was down about 2% from the year before. today s report also shows nearly one-third of babies born in the u.s. are now delivered by c-section. and postal workers have quite a day ahead of them. they re about to handle 800 million pieces of mail today. their busiest and i m sure most fun day of the year. no kidding, tis the season. finally for this half hour, we ve heard a lot about prince william and kate middleton since they announced their engagement last month. but we haven t seen a lot of them until now. the king and queen-to-be made their first public appearance over the weekend. and the bbc s nicholas witchell was there. reporter: this is the life to