Gays in the Military

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” [Admiral] Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

The issue of gays in the military and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” seems to have picked up a lot of speed in recent days. I imagine it’s connected to the election shocker in Massachusetts when a Republican took Ted Kennedy’s seat, which may have even wrecked Obama’s bid for, well, something that was close to universal health care.

Maybe Obama is seriously considering the possibility that he will be a one-term president, and he would like to leave with a big victory in civil rights.

I can imagine the scene. President Obama has Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his office for a serious man-to-man, and he explains that he has given the military everything it has asked for on Iraq and Afghanistan, at no small cost to his political position in the Democratic Party, and he now wants a commensurate favor in return, “I want to be the president that allowed gays in the military as a matter of right.”

Secretary Gates understands the political situation and how Obama is in a very vulnerable position, possibly ready to fall as a failed president, and he nods sympathetically, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

But seeing how Mr. Obama has been hapless with executive power thus far, one shouldn’t start counting those chickens yet. After a whole year of working on health care, he is now prepared to let the whole matter drop and get nothing for it, even with heavy majorities in Congress. Funny, when a Republican president wants something, he can just ram it through and tell us to suck on it.

Republican presidents are quasi-kings; Democratic presidents are un-American traitors.

Gays in the Military

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” [Admiral] Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

The issue of gays in the military and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” seems to have picked up a lot of speed in recent days. I imagine it’s connected to the election shocker in Massachusetts when a Republican took Ted Kennedy’s seat, which may have even wrecked Obama’s bid for, well, something that was close to universal health care.

Maybe Obama is seriously considering the possibility that he will be a one-term president, and he would like to leave with a big victory in civil rights.

I can imagine the scene. President Obama has Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his office for a serious man-to-man, and he explains that he has given the military everything it has asked for on Iraq and Afghanistan, at no small cost to his political position in the Democratic Party, and he now wants a commensurate favor in return, “I want to be the president that allowed gays in the military as a matter of right.”

Secretary Gates understands the political situation and how Obama is in a very vulnerable position, possibly ready to fall as a failed president, and he nods sympathetically, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

But seeing how Mr. Obama has been hapless with executive power thus far, one shouldn’t start counting those chickens yet. After a whole year of working on health care, he is now prepared to let the whole matter drop and get nothing for it, even with heavy majorities in Congress. Funny, when a Republican president wants something, he can just ram it through and tell us to suck on it.

Republican presidents are quasi-kings; Democratic presidents are un-American traitors.