Pres. Obama sent such a polite note to Sandy Tsao, a military officer who told her superiors that she is gay:
He is, of course, lying. On the occasion of The One’s dismissal of his first gay Arabic linguist, the folks over at HuffPo note that he has two options. First, he could exercise his authority to order the military not to investigate any serviceman’s sexuality. Or,
A new study, about to be published by a group of experts in military law, shows that President Obama does, in fact, have statutory, stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges. Obama could simply invoke his authority under federal law (10 U.S.C. §12305) to retain any member of the military he believes is essential to national security.
Pres. Obama should announce that he is taking one of these steps in order to institute a one year moratorium on removing gays from the military. During that time, his administration should work on obtaining congressional approval for formal repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
He won’t. It’s better to write pretty notes and pretend you care. For most gays that’ll be enough. They’d rather go back to hating on Miss California anyway.
May 11, 2009 at 7:29 am
He’s not lying. He’s doing exactly what he said he was going to do during the campaign.
If you want to say he’s not doing enough, I’ll agree with that. If you want to say that he SHOULD have sponsored a DADT bill in the Senate, I’ll agree with that. I’ve been pretty vocal at pointing out where the Obama administration has been lacking in it’s support of gays and lesbians, but the facts are he never once said he intended to take unilateral action to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He has consistently said that he wanted to work with Congress and military leaders to develop a consensus that it’s time to repeal the policy. Is that enough? Hell no, but it’s also not a lie.
May 11, 2009 at 11:35 am
Dolphin, this is a good illustration of why I rarely respond to your comments. Back when we were having the discussion on your blog about gay Republicans being “self-loathing”, I realized that you did not read what was written and then respond to that. The same thing has happened here.
Nowhere in my post do I reference the campaign or any other statement made by Pres. Obama other than the note. The text of the note is clearly legible and states, in relevant part, ” . . . I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action) . . .”
In my post, I point out what the president has to know – he can change this without Congressional action. The linked and discussed article from Huffington Post suggests two pathways for changing the current policy which do not involve Congressional action.
From this point, feel free to comment to your heart’s content. This will be my last response to you.