It now appears most of the forward motion in the Obama Administration on scaling back Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell comes from appointees with Republican backgrounds. Last week, we reported that the only Bush appointee in the Obama cabinet, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, had approved new rules making it harder to discharge gays from the military.
The secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, said Wednesday that he was effectively ignoring the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because he had no intention of pursuing discharges of active-duty service members who have recently told him that they are gay.
Mr. McHugh, the Army’s civilian leader and a former Republican congressman from upstate New York, said that he had initiated the conversations with service members in recent months as part of the Pentagon’s review of how best to carry out a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which requires that gay service members keep their sexual orientation secret or face discharge.
Seems if Obama wants to get something done, he turns to a Republican.
While this is a step in the right direction, it appears only to apply to conversations openly gay soldiers have with the Army Secretary. Still, that he will allow such exchanges indicates he’s willing to listen to such service members, a necessary step toward understanding the concerns and learning how best to allow their service while continuing to maintain the army’s effectiveness.
The New York Times headline, Secretary of the Army Says He Will Not Pursue ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Discharges, does seem to miss the mark, not accurately summarizing the article’s content.
It now appears most of the forward motion in the Obama Administration on scaling back Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell comes from appointees with Republican backgrounds.
What an odd preface. If we put those pushing for or against the scaling back of DADT into two neat lines I am not so sure we’d find more Republicans than Democrats, though I admit I can’t be sure. God knows, my own Republican senator John McCain wouldn’t be in the line with Robert Gates. But so what? Setting this up the way you have is contrived and useless. The whole premise, that somehow the ones in the trenches helping undo a bad policy are mainly Republicans, is shaky, misleading and irrelevant. Many on both sides of the aisle have made a splendid effort to overturn DADT, Republicans and Democrats, and I thank every one of them. To then politicize it and try to measure which group has done more than the other, to say the Repubs deserve more credit, is stoking the flames of partisanship, and for no reason. Surely you can do better than this.
I suspect that the mood in the top Pentagon offices is that acting on DA/DT is a useless political hot potato and only a person who forces himself to be dealt with is going to be paid any attention. Unless an obstinate martinet with visions of stopping his climb up the ranks takes on a crusade, DA/DT is just openly good advice for how to navigate in the system.
It makes sense that the best conduct is to look the other way unless someone is jumping up and down and in your face demanding notice.
Obviously, Obambi does not want to deal with DA/DT and the military does not need the attention of making a mountain out of a molehill.
If there have been military ferrets who nose out the gays, I assume they have had a specialty reassignment.
richard, compare these two statements:
Now lets talk about the premise.
“Forward motion in scaling back” hardly morphs into “helping undo a bad policy.”
Typically, liberals shift the argument. Yours is a masterpiece of shifting from first gear into sixth gear without any transitions through gears two, three, four and five.
You are so ready to carp and moan about your argument that you have no time or thought for the real premise posited.
Obambi and the Obambi Congress can order the end of DA/DT in a nano-second. Take your premise and your moral relevancy tap dance there. Meanwhile, as Dan so beautifully stated it: “It now appears most of the forward motion in the Obama Administration on scaling back Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell comes from appointees with Republican backgrounds.”
Sorry that your Democrat religion has failed you, but poll sucking Messiah’s are apt to disappoint.