The New Republic

"My guess is that he hasn't made a single phone call about this gruesome ethic. Does it really offend him? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect not."

Because when I read the TNR, of prime importance is "guesses" and "suspicions" of its analysts. I also like the word "gruesome"; I'm guessing that it refers to the following:

"He has rather limply indicated that this ugly formula (these are not at all his words) should no longer be enshrined in law."

Now, why not just go whole-hog and say, er, "limp-wristedly"? What is "gruesome", the limpness of the indication or the ugliness of the formula - not Obama's mind, but Clinton's, and that after an astonishingly bizarre miscalculation over both policy and politics. DADT is dumb and should have been dumped long ago. Mullen is right. And I wish that Obama were working in an economic, social and political climate that he could actually get rid of this policy without too many problems. But ... we are now hearing that even on START, Rahm thought Obama spent too much effort and time. So, let's look at priorities and political capital. Financial Regulation or DADT? Health Care or DADT? Stimulus or DADT? START or DADT? Afghanistan or DADT? Iraq or DADT? Student loans or DADT? Torture or DADT? "Spineless spiral"? Political realism. Now that Mullen has spoken, perhaps we can expect McCain to put his head in a shredder, for Collins and Snow and Lugar and the rest of the Spineless gang in the Middle to grow a pair, and to put this behind them. Another pathetic post from Peretz.

- icarusr

November 22, 2010 at 4:33pm

"Because when I read the TNR, of prime importance is "guesses" and "suspicions" of its analysts." Didn't you get the memo? Marty Peretz always assumes the worst about the President of the United States; it's the only way Peretz manages to get up in the morning.

- TJ814

November 22, 2010 at 4:56pm

"Financial Regulation or DADT? Health Care or DADT? Stimulus or DADT? START or DADT? Afghanistan or DADT? Iraq or DADT? Student loans or DADT? Torture or DADT?" icarus: You have 8 very big items on your list and yet you wish to claim that Obama had time for all these big items but no time at all to deal with a silly prejudice like anti-gay sentiment in the military? No self-respecting CEO will ever concede that he was so overwhelmed with work that he did not have the time to deal with a human issue of such importance. And why are you even trying to mitigate Obama's failure to make any progress in this matter? I disagree with Peretz that the reason for this failure is mere spinelessness. It's just that he doesn't really give a damn. His slip of the tongue on the tonight show about the special Olympics was a good indication about his emotional indifference to difference. When he is moved by difference you see it right away, as was the case with the police officer who arrested that black professor. Funny how Obama had all the time in the world to set right that little event.

- noga1

November 22, 2010 at 5:19pm

"You have 8 very big items on your list and yet you wish to claim that Obama had time for all these big items but no time at all to deal with a silly prejudice like anti-gay sentiment in the military?" It is not Obama who has not the time, it is the Congress tied up by fanatic, obstructionist Republicans. We have a legislative democracy in the United States in which the president does not make the laws. He has to prioritize what he will attempt to push through the Congress. Of course, in Israel it is different. There the Prime Minister does whatever he wants. ____________________ Thank you, icarus, for making confetti out of Peretz in your logical shredder. Saves everyone else the time and effort of commenting at all.

- roidubouloi

November 22, 2010 at 5:39pm

"It is not Obama who has not the time, it is the Congress " Yes, I see. It's the "it's not him; it's them" sort of argument. Poor Obama. A helpless and virtuous victim oppressed by the American Congress.

- noga1

November 22, 2010 at 5:44pm

Sorry Noga, but you got this wrong. Obama promised to wait for the Military review before pushing for its overhaul so that a future Republican administration couldn't simply reverse his decision as political. It is a hell of a lot harder for Republicans to go against the very wishes of the military as to getting rid of it. And there are a number of Republican senators who have come out for it already. Besides this, the real fault lies with Republicans not with Democrats. If it goes down it is because of them, not because Obama couldn't perform legislative magic to convince people to say yes who have never had the intention of saying yes (remember this after the military itself has called for getting rid of it)

- blackton

November 22, 2010 at 7:02pm

Someone correct me on this, but while the president can do some things by executive order, I'm not sure if he can personally remove the relevant article from the different service regulations (e.g. Army Regulation 635-200, article 14 -- I may have the wrong number) that permits chain-of-command initiated separation from the service on grounds of homosexuality. I'm pretty sure it needs congressional action to change the UCMJ, in any case.

- ironyroad

November 22, 2010 at 10:14pm

"Funny how Obama had all the time in the world to set right that little event." A beer in the Rose Garden is somewhat different, IMHO, from dismantling a policy that, mishandled, derailed Clinton's presidency from the get-go. And I was perhaps too cryptic in my mention of "political capital". This is an issue that is fairly close to my heart and so I have been tracking this for many years. In analysing any issue, context - historical context as well as political context - plays an important part. It is a mistake, it seems to me, to simply characterise an issue as "very important", expect action, and when action is not forthcoming, denounce the putative actor. First, Obama walked into his position as Commander in Chief in an even weaker position than Clinton: he had opposed a war in which the United States, and the Armed Forces, had committed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and over four thousand lives. No President, to my admittedly limited knowledge of US political history, has ever come into office in the midst of war with bigger political baggage than that. Proposing the repeal of DADT without a full military review would have met a wall of resistance in the military even as he needed their support to pull troops out of Iraq and bolster US involvement in Afghanistan. And so, aside from any other big-P political consideration, there was the politics of the military and the relations of the new Commander in Chief with the men at arms. Clinton misfired; Obama has so far - with the singular exception of McCrystal - done a wonderful job. That Mullen now comes out in support of the ban is a testament to Obama's leadership and persistence, rather than the Army's sudden love for fags in uniform, it seems to me. Second, political capital, like all capital, is scarce and must be invested wisely, no matter how important the issue or big the rewards. Sadly, DADT repeal has maximum political harm and minimal political reward. You can and should expect the President to spend capital for the sheer rightness of the cause, but within reason; Obama has demonstrated himself Burkean to the core: he is not a revolutionary, but an incrementalist. To switch metaphors, an incrementalist does not press hard against a concrete wall that nearly brought down his predecessor; he hammers at its edges and foundations until it collapses, even if it takes longer. I recall the gay marriage issue in Ontario in 1994. Bob Rae had promised it during the campaign, but his caucus was not ready for it. He pushed and pushed, until finally his Attorney General brought the bill to the Provincial Parliament - knowing they did not have the votes, and was promptly defeated. A wonderful gesture of principle; set back the cause ten years. Third, Bob Rae had a majority in the Provincial Parliament. It is interesting to observe, as you do, "it's always them"; but, in point of fact, legislatures - be it Congress, Parliament or provincial legislatures - are pesky and temperamental things. A President is not, actually, a CEO; neither is a Prime Minister, for that matter - the comparison itself is inapt. Max Baucus held up health care in the Senate for nine months and there was little anyone could do about it; twenty-seven Blue Dog Democrats forced one compromise after another in the House, and there was little anyone could do about THAT. In Canada, a sitting Prime Minister has just this past week resorted to an unelected Senate majority to defeat a bill that has cleared the elected House - a first in Canada's history. And so, when you have eight other items - all of which are more important for the general welfare of the country than DADT repeal - for which you need the votes of all the crazy hicks in your party, it is unsound politics at best to press for legislative repeal. I don't know whether he "cares" about gays, or gays in the military, or DADT. Clinton did and he fucked the gays over for a generation. Caring is not a sound basis for politics or policy. I look at the landscape, and I say: Mullen has spoken; he would not have spoken under Bush; Obama has been seen to not be dogmatic on this issue; he has let time and the flow of things bring us to this point. This is something; limp it is not.

- icarusr

November 22, 2010 at 10:59pm

"A helpless and virtuous victim oppressed by the American Congress." Incidentally, the world of politics is not black and white. Obama is not helpless, and I cannot vouch for his virtue; but no amount of good will on his part could have brought Congress around to repeal without the support of the Miliary, and this was absent in 2009.

- icarusr

November 22, 2010 at 11:02pm

But icarus. You are talking about political reality. Why do you expect that fantasist Israel fanatics to be the slightest bit interested in reality? They, like the Republicans, do not believe in the existence of the world. They believe the world is whatever they claim it to be on a given day. As someone said on a nearby thread about the dysfunctional US political system, there is a rendezvous with destiny on the way. That applies to the Israeli right as much as to the American right. The tragedy is that we are all going to pay for their insanity.

- roidubouloi

November 22, 2010 at 11:52pm

You cannot be separated from any branch of the service by declaring you are, for example, a Satanist. You have the right to religious freedom, no matter what anyone around you thinks, unless you are endangering mission readiness. An NCO making an abusive or insulting remark about an enlisted soldier's Satanist beliefs would be opening him or herself to disciplinary proceedings, or at the least a Letter of Reprimand in their personnel file. However, you can be separated from the army by way of AR 635-200, article 14 (?), and there are equivalent provisions for the other services. I'd be curious to know at what level the removal of this article would have to be decided. I have always understood it to be a congressional matter to change the UCMJ, but my question is: what is required for homosexuality to have the same status as Satanism, that is, not in any way grounds for separation?

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 12:11am

"...what is required for homosexuality to have the same status as Satanism, that is, not in any way grounds for separation?" Not a good way of speaking about homosexuality. After all people can't help being homosexuals but they can in principle change their religious practices. A better way would be to compare homosexuals with race. People are born black, Jewish, Hispanic, Chinese. They can't change that fact about themselves and it is wrong to expect them to behave in a way that implies it is something shameful that needs to be concealed. They did not choose to enter the world through that particular door. In resolving this matter there shouldn't be even a hint of analogizing the status of religion to that of homosexuality. Not even for utility's sake.

- noga1

November 23, 2010 at 7:15am

Noga: obviously I think you are dead-right about the difference, but I think it is that very difference that makes irony's point compelling. Even in respect of something that is within the control of a person (religion - although this is debatable at some deep level), and in respect of a practice that, on its face, is problematic (Satanism), the US military has to be careful how to approach it; and yet, in respect of an innate trait that in itself has no ethical, moral or operational dysfunction, the US military goes after the "practitioners". So I can, in good conscience, declare both of you right.

- icarusr

November 23, 2010 at 8:57am

Irony: I don't know the legal status of the provision, but it has always been my understanding that after the Clinton fiasco, because Congress got involved in DADT, its removal has been a Congressional matter. Let's not forget that it was Sam Nunn, a Democrat, who spear-headed the opposition to the end of ban on gays in the military, and DADT was considered, at the time, a brilliant compromise. The year after DADT came into force, the incidence of gays being discharged from the armed forces jumped significantly remained at that elevated level. Good intentions and virtuous policy paved the road ....

- icarusr

November 23, 2010 at 9:01am

Noga -- yes, you're right of course. I didn't for a moment mean to say they were the same thing. I was making more of a rhetorical gesture, something like: What would be horrifying to conservatives/religious folks? Satanism. Ok, can you name something else that horrifies them? Homosexuality. And yet the one is protected by the constitution even in the armed services, while the other is hunted down. My Satanist example is from "real life," incidentally. The NCO who told the soldier that his openly held Satanist beliefs were disgusting/insane/offensive or whatever ended up with a General Officer Letter of Reprimand in his file. Not so great for promotion chances when his turn came. ick, my point about the regulation is that one way to finally put an end to discrimination and persecution on the official level would be to remove the tool that permits separation from the services on grounds of homosexual conduct (whatever that is) alone. In the Army, that's chapter 15 of the reg. Then if the army wanted to get rid of a homosexual service member they would have to use another chapter, e.g. chapter 14-12 "Pattern of Misconduct." As they would have to then show that homosexual behavior was in and of itself "misconduct," my guess is that the chain of command would think long and hard before they initiated such a separation procedure. I would doubt that a presidential executive order would actually remove chapter 15 (and its cognates in the Navy etc), but an executive order could disallow any separation procedures to be initiated, and it would then fall to the Sec Def to start the process for removing the chapters from the regs. The outcome would be to make separation on grounds of "homosexual conduct" as unlikely as as separation for belonging to a weird religion. Not that it's a weird religion, but you see what I mean.

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 12:17pm

Just as a footnote, I believe the thinking is that congressional legislation to finally remove discrimination against gays in the military (e.g. the 2011 Military Service Privacy Act or some such name) would be much tougher to reverse in the future than a presidential executive order, that could be nixed by President Palin in 2013 (so to speak).

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 12:22pm

I forgot you worked for the US armed forces - for JAG, if I recall correctly? I stand - sit, actually, in bed, sick - corrected and educated. And I agree with your final point.

- icarusr

November 23, 2010 at 4:12pm

That was it. Watch out for the laptop on the lap! Heat, and all that.

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 4:18pm

And again, I'm not sure of the full legal ramifications of the current situation. Altered military justice procedures (of which disciplinary procedures are usually considerated a part) that might impact the Uniform Code are, as far as I know, subject to Congressional approval. But if someone out there knows for certain . . . . I'd like to be confirmed or corrected.

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 4:23pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell#In_the_Obama_Administration Wiki to the rescue! It's because of the provisions of 10 USC section 654, that underpin the service regulations. In this case, Obama can be criticized for not working this as hard as he might have, but ultimately the Senate voted against the House legislation. What do you do with someone like John McCain, who said he would vote for repeal if the service chiefs and the Sec Def supported that, and then when they did, he reneged? It's probably the case that the president could promulgate an executive order that would direct the armed services chain of command to e.g. not initiate separations for homosexuality unless, for example, other grounds for separation were present in any given case. That however would be a very temporary solution, even if it made sense politically.

- ironyroad

November 23, 2010 at 5:12pm

Profound. You just can't get this kind of analysis any more.

- mlottman

November 24, 2010 at 11:45pm