Former football coach turned U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) has been in the news for many subjects. But one particular discussion with Tuberville has been his unilateral 10-month hold on military promotions as a protest of a Pentagon policy allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel for abortions, a hold which has drawn criticism from his own political party as well as Democratic senators and President Joe Biden.
That hold from Tuberville, which saw incredible criticism for him from military leaders as well as politicians and the public, ended Wednesday. That allowed the remaining nominees to be confirmed in a voice vote. And, as per Frank Thorp V, Kate Santaliz and Megan Lebowitz of NBC News, it ended without any concessions for Tuberville, or any change to the policy he was protesting.
This came after Tuberville’s attempt to change that policy was stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act late last month, and as Democrats and independent Arizona senator Krysten Sinema were preparing a procedural way to get around Tuberville’s hold. And that saw Tuberville eventually relent on promotions at the three-star rank and below earlier this month, and then allow the last remaining promotions this week. And his 10-month hold ending with no actual victories saw a lot of jokes at his expense from the sports world and beyond:
Coach Tommy Tuberville routed in a 0-436 loss after the senator failed to prevent a single military promotionhttps://t.co/JxnKgjRifX
— Walter Hickey (@WaltHickey) December 20, 2023
Burned a year's worth of timeouts and still got sacked. https://t.co/bOt6wr3cJG
— Harvey Araton (@HarveyAraton) December 20, 2023
Coach Tuberville finally takes a knee after scoring no points. "Senate Confirms Remaining Senior Officers, Ending Tuberville’s Protest" https://t.co/FxucK2NXuT
— Admiral James Stavridis, USN, Ret. (@stavridisj) December 20, 2023
That came after further roastings for Tuberville around his Dec. 5 move to allow the lower-grade promotions:
"Coach, I'm going to speak in words you understand: You were tackled in your own end zone and this was not good. You have no profile nationally other than being dumb enough to hurt our military at a time when we are in national crisis." Claire McCaskill to Sen. Tommy Tuberville
— Karen DaltonBeninato (@kbeninato) December 5, 2023
At that time, President Biden (a frequent critic of Tuberville’s) put out a statement including “In the end, this was all pointless”:
After 10 months of undermining military readiness and the morale of our troops, Senator Tuberville of Alabama has finally lifted his politically motivated hold on hundreds of military nominations. 425 highly-qualified, patriotic military leaders have now been confirmed by the Senate to perform their duties as they fulfill their sacred oath to keep our country safe. These confirmations are long overdue, and should never have been held up in the first place. Our service members are the backbone of our country and deserve to receive the pay and promotions they have earned. In the end, this was all pointless. Senator Tuberville, and the Republicans who stood with him, needlessly hurt hundreds of servicemembers and military families and threatened our national security – all to push a partisan agenda. I hope no one forgets what he did.
Tuberville has been in the Senate since 2021. He went 159-99 overall as a NCAA coach, including a 29-22 mark in his most recent job (2013-2016 with Cincinnati), then worked as an ESPN analyst before going into politics.
[NBC News]
