Paul Begala

If tax cuts for the rich generated jobs, we would have more jobs.

I would actually reverse this. It's the President who took them on.

Right. And he's also the senator from Nevada. The biggest employer in his state is the gaming industry. The biggest taxpayer in his state is the gaming industry.

The President is the commander-in-chief of the military. If he believes, as he says, that discriminating against, kicking 14,000 men and women who are qualified and serving honorably, 14,000, kicking them out, that hurts his military, he…

Well, the people who voted against it, frankly, which is a united Republican Party. You even had some Republicans, like Scott Brown from Massachusetts, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who voted against legislation that they say they support.

They didn't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, or they would have done this.

The problem here is hypocrisy, ok.

I think now that you're looking at -- at passing this legislation which does a lot of good for the military in addition to allowing finally gays and lesbians to serve with honor and equality in the military.

The President has personally weighed in on this. Now, liberals are really mad at him right now and I think with some justification.

I -- I'm saying they need to vote on this thing. Of course they're going to have amendments; Reid's offering 15 for crying out loud.

It's been as rigorously analyzed and thoroughly debated as any national security policy that -- that we have seen in a long time.

I think he's empirically wrong when he says there's no groundswell of support among the troops. We will see what this study says. But there plainly is. Public opinion has changed on this issue in support of equality. And military opinion…

The solution here is not to wait for the senate, which I think will not be able to pass the repeal. But, instead, for President Obama to issue a stop-loss order.

An unintended consequence of 'don't ask don't tell' which was a compromise that the president -- my boss, President Clinton signed into law 17 years ago. Here's what happened. We had an officer, for example, serving in Iraq... he was…

If the Republicans, who still have the capacity under the filibuster rule to block anything, if they hold firm -- and I fear that they will -- they will be able to stop this.

I think he should be respected on that. I -- I do think he's empirically wrong when he says there's no groundswell of support among the troops. Public opinion has changed on this issue in support of equality. And military opinion has…

But the president is the commander in chief. He has huge responsibility and authority, under our Constitution, when it comes to military matters. He can order our military to stop the discharges.

I think, one way or the other, it's gone over time. It may not be before New Year's, but it cannot sustain. It's just -- you can't -- discrimination doesn't last forever in America.

It's kind of hard to say somehow this is going to hurt the military.

I think this gives ammunition to those who want equality in the military, particularly Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, who was just reelected by 6 percent in a terrible year for Democrats.

He could stop this tomorrow. He says that we have to have legislation for what he calls a durable solution. Well, he's right, but he's the commander-in-chief.

The most important person here is the person at the top of the chain of command, the commander-in-chief, who, frankly, has been far too timid on this issue.

Why doesn't John Boehner, who has almost 20 years now been on government health care, why doesn't he decline it? Because it's good. That's why.

They should become the change they seek in the world. They should lead by example and reject government-funded health care for themselves and their family.

Oh, I think so. I think -- I do think, in fairness to the Republicans, many of them, probably most of them, did campaign promising to repeal Obamacare.