JANUARY 9, 2009
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Ok, maybe this makes up for Rick Warren. A couple of months ago, Obama seemed to be walking back from his promise to undo the destructive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. But today, in a video posted on the change.gov website (a site, full disclosure, designed by my husband, who works for the Obama transition), Robert Gibbs sounded pretty unambiguous. The five-minute segment featured Gibbs answering questions that had been posted on the site and voted up by users. At the very end, he addressed this one: “Is the new administration going to get rid of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy?” He responded, “You don’t hear a politician give a one-word answer much, but it’s yes.” Granted, he didn’t say when it was going to happen, but it’s definitely an encouraging sign, and one with far more concrete repercussions than the participation of Warren in the inauguration. That doesn’t mean choosing Warren was a good idea – Obama still elevated the already too-high standing of a fundamentalist ideologue. But if this pattern holds – symbolic sops to the right, followed by real-world gains for gays and lesbians – it will be a huge improvement over Bill Clinton, who did almost exactly the opposite.
3 comments
ONE-WORD ANSWER.... During the campaign, Barack Obama vowed to end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, a position that proved to be uncontroversial and generally endorsed by voters. Since Election Day, however, there have been at least some
- Anonymous
January 10, 2009 at 8:03am
What is "uncontroversial" about a policy that forces you to deny your loved one in public? That makes you "single" when everyone else is invited with their partners? It may have the support of voters, that does not make it "uncontroversial".
- ingolfson
January 12, 2009 at 1:24am
Let's leave Bill Clinton out of this - flawed as he and especially this policy was, he had exactly zero political will behind him on ANY decision regarding LGBT people. Obama is walking a fine line, but this country's views on LGBT people are night and day between 1991 and 2009. Clinton revisionism is veering in to some pretty amusing historical amnesia these days.
Clinton didn't come in to office with angels singing down from the sky dawning a new day for Democratic thought with a stupified Republican party babbling nonsense and living in a dead past. He came in to office in a country still in thrall to Reaganism and getting worse. That he won was more a testiment to his charisma, brilliance and rotten economy (and Ross Perot) than a repudiation of right wing thought. I guess the US needed to have itself almost destroyed by the fantasy of that whole mindset before the political will was there to even vote in someone lke Obama, let alone tackle the carnage of winger stupidity like institutionlized bigotry.
I think Clinton should have fired Colin Powell the day he mouthed off to the press defying a Presidential perogotive regarding gays in the military, Gulf War I or not. Clinton blew it by showing fear and the wolves predictably ate him alive. Had he showed who was boss, he would have gained at least a measure of respect if not love and the military would have tbeen much more likely to grudgngly accept him as the alpha dog, which he never quite realized that he was was, not them. They were testing him by slapping him around at he let them, bad move.
The whole backing down of Clinton on that was classic lick-their-boots-and-maybe-they-will-like-me stuff that just made the military hate him, not respect him. They are hierarchal and need a boss, not a pall.
- Wandreycer1
January 12, 2009 at 7:41am