Jillian Rayfield December 20, 2010, 11:32 AM

Before the Senate passed a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell on Saturday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made an angry — and somewhat rambling — speech on the floor against the repeal. He warned of “distractions” for servicemembers, adding: “I don’t want to permit that opportunity to happen and I’ll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda [Naval Hospital], Marines are up there with no legs, none. You’ve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs.”

“So here we are about six weeks after an election that repudiated the agenda of the other side,” McCain said, “we are jamming — or trying to jam major issues through the Senate.”

[TPM SLIDESHOW: It’s Over: Senate Repeals Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell]

He continued:

You think: ‘what this bizarro world that the Majority Leader has been carrying us in of cloture votes on this, votes on various issues that are on the political agenda of the other side, you somehow think that beginning next January 5, we will all love one another and kumbaya?

McCain added that he’s heard from “thousands” of active and retired military personnel, who tell him not to repeal DADT. But, McCain said, it will be repealed, “and all over America, there’ll be gold stars put up in windows, in the rural towns and communities all over America that don’t partake in the elite schools that bar military recruiters from campus, that don’t partake in the salons of Georgetown and the other liberal bastions here around the country, but there will be additional sacrifice.”

Here’s the full speech:

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, John McCain