New Wrinkle in Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Fight: Just Don’t Ask About the Told

This week, a new strategy emerged in the effort to keep brave and qualified gay soldiers in the military, despite the still-in-effect-for-the-foreseeable-future “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy.  From Advocate.com’s Kerry Eleveld:

Seventy-seven Congressional members led by Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings of Florida sent a letter to President Barack Obama Monday urging him to take immediate action to stop the investigations of “don’t ask, don’t tell” violations. The letter does not call for an executive order halting discharges but rather a change in how the policy is implemented within the Department of Defense.

“It is a presidential moratorium, it is a significant presidential action, but it’s not an executive order,” said Christopher Neff, political director at the Palm Center, a research institute at University of California, Santa Barbara. “They basically want the military to disregard anyone who ‘tells’ [of someone’s sexuality] as long as there isn’t a [Uniform Code of Military Justice] violation or something criminal.”

Kerry asked Robert Gibbs about it at yesterday’s briefing, explaining it well in the process:

Full Text of President Obama’s Remarks and Memorandum on Federal Benefits

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

___________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release                         June 17, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT THE SIGNING OF A

PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM

REGARDING FEDERAL BENEFITS AND NON-DISCRIMINATION

Oval Office

President Obama’s ‘Friends with Benefits’ Memo Contains Baby Steps

Update: Just got off of the conference call with Director of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a question in, but I can say that the press, as a whole, are very unimpressed with this move.  I expect there will be a lot of negative press on this.  The tone of the questioning was uniformly skeptical.

On the other hand, Berry did stress, repeatedly, that this memo’s reach is restricted by DOMA.  It almost seemed as though Berry was saying that this very weak tea is designed to whet the public appetite for a DOMA repeal.  If so, the administration’s defense of DOMA is that much more mystifying.

Berry also tried to pretend that a Presidential memo is the same as an executive order, but was called on it.  The memo expires with the President’s term.  He again stressed the need for a more permanent, legislative solution in response.

Another reporter pointed out that most, if not all, of the benefits in this memo are already available to at least some federal employees.  Berry responded that this action removes such decisions from the individual supervisor’s discretion.

The White House has just released a fact sheet regarding the Presidential Memorandum to be signed later today.  While any progress against discrimination is welcome, this seems like a poorly-timed half-measure.

The benefits outlined in the fact sheet aren’t going to impress anyone, and coming, as they do, when President Obama is under fire from the LGBTQ community and its allies, I predict very loud shrugging in response.  If you can’t afford a dozen roses, maybe you ought to skip the dandelions.

A press conference call is scheduled for 3 pm.  I should have more to say about this then.  Here is the full text of the fact sheet:

What if LGBTQ Issues Are No Longer the Wedge, President Obama Is?

I plan to go into much greater detail on the State of the LGBTQ Union later in the week, but a thought crystallized in me last night when I saw a tweet from one of my favorite tweeps:

GayRainArmy Is Obama so out of touch that he thinks “private assurances” to LGBT “leaders” is going to help anything? RT @heathr http://tr.im/oKGbabout 2 hours ago from Seesmic Desktop

The link is to an announcement about the President’s new “Friends…with benefits” memorandum, to be signed later today.  From NYT:

Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Opinion Poll: 3 Questions

I’m conducting an opinion poll about the military’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” (DADT) policy for use in an article later this week.   There are 3 seperate polls, please choose only one.

Click here to take the poll for Self-identified Conservatives.

Click here to take the poll for Self-identified Liberals.

Click here to take the poll for Self-identified Independents.

If you wish, you can click here to see other articles that I’ve written on the topic.

Independent Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Opinion Poll: 3 Questions

Liberal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Opinion Poll: 3 Questions

Conservative Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Opinion Poll: 3 Questions

Playboy Gets One Right: Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is Dangerous

Ana Marie Cox (AMC) has just written her first article for Playboy, and in the process, has provided the magazine with a large measure of redemption.  The piece is compelling and timely, especially given the Supreme Court’s denial of cert to a challenge to DADT.

In the piece, Ana Marie frames the issue of the military’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” (DADT) policy as both a civil rights issue, and a much more immediate national security issue.  For good measure, she posits that repealing DADT is just good politics:

But one of the key components of recent Democratic victories has been candidates’ refusal to cede military issues to the traditionally hawkish GOP. Repealing DADT should be a part of reclaiming national security as a bipartisan issue. Honestly, would there be a more “efficient use of gays in the Army” than having them hunt down Islamic extremists, arguably the only group more uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality than social conservatives?

That’s probably my favorite passage in the piece, though I encourage reading the whole thing.

There are also a few points that I would add.

White House Press Briefing: Strike 3 on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

At today’s White House Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs was asked, again, about “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” at the top of the briefing, and again said that the President was “working with the Joint Chiefs, the Pentagon and others (previously, he’s said “congress”) to bring about a change in that policy.”

Given the news that Congress doesn’t seem to have gotten that memo, I followed up with Gibbs about the lack of urgency: (CSpan had the wrong video, here’s the full briefing. Check the 34:30 mark)

I will get into this a little more deeply later, but suffice it to say I am deeply disappointed in how the DADT is going.

The measure currently in Congress is, likely, a year or more from a vote in the House, let alone passage. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, meanwhile, also appears to be in no big hurry.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but let’s see how this policy looks when actionable intelligence goes untranslated because Daniel Choi isn’t there to do it.// //

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