Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pull Your Punches

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-pull-your-punches/?hp


It’s been a good week, perhaps too good of a week, for disclosure and transparency. The blogosphere has brought us more than we ever wanted to know about the telephony habits of a South Carolina legislator; we discovered that, in one case, the White House’s efforts to provide employment amid a recession has gotten both the current and a former president into trouble; and we learned that we’re all going get a peek over the fence and into the lives of Wasilla, Alaska’s, most famous resident. There are times when more feels like less …








When it comes to disclosure, however, the big news came at the end of the week: “The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” wrote The Times’s David M. Herszenhorn and Carl Hulse. “Separately on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a similar measure allowing the repeal.”

“Our military is made up of the best and bravest men and women in our nation, and my greatest honor is leading them as Commander-in-Chief,” said a triumphant President Obama. “This legislation will help make our Armed Forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity.”

Who will win the political battle over the repeal of the military policy on gays?

Igor Volsky of Think Progress, notes that change will be slow, even if Republicans won’t admit it:

Under the proposal, Congress would repeal the statute this year, but the current military policy would remain in place until President Obama, the Defense Secretary, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certified that repeal is “consistent with the military’s standards of readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruitment and retention” and Congress and the public had 60 days to review the study.
In an orchestrated manner, almost every single House Republican took to the floor to condemn the proposal, misrepresenting it as an immediate repeal that does not allow the Defense Department to complete its study