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Here’s the President taking some basic questions on DADT from Anderson Cooper. It’s the same old, same old, saying it’s all out of his hands, the ball is in the Nancy’s and Harry’s court…
COOPER: Don’t ask, don’t tell, it requires an act of Congress to overturn it. You have said you want it overturned.
OBAMA: Yes.
COOPER: But your — your critics, and even some of your supporters, say, look, you — you could stop enforcement right now of don’t ask, don’t tell. You could defer enforcement until you prod Congress to act.
Why not? Why not act?
OBAMA: Look, I — I have had conversations with Bob Gates, as well as Admiral Mullen, about the fact that I want to see this law changed.
I also want to make sure that, A, we are not simply ignoring a congressional law. If Congress passes a law that is constitutionally valid, then it’s not appropriate for the executive branch simply to say, we will not enforce a law It is our duty to enforce laws.. I do think that there’s the possibility, though, that we change how the law is being enforced, and — even as we are pursuing a shift in congressional policy.
But, look, the bottom line is, I want to see this changed. And we have already contacted congressional allies. I want to make sure that it is changed in a way that ultimately works well for our military and for the outstanding gay and lesbian soldiers that are both currently enlisted or would like to enlist. And…
COOPER: Do you personally have a timetable in your mind of when you want to see it changed?
OBAMA: I would like to see it done sooner, rather than later. And we have begun a process to not only work it through Congress, but also to make sure that the Pentagon has thought through all the ramifications of how this would be most effective.
Nothing really new here, though you notice the missing follow up question — how is he going to change how it is enforced? What does he believe will “work well” for the military? The devil is in the details and at this point, for interviews on DADT, the White House has the same tape of answers playing in a loop. Btw, when are Nancy and Harry going to take questions?
More at Americablog.
28 Comments
ALL the ramificationsObama said he wants
If ALL of the ramifications of integration had been worked through first, our armed forces still wouldn’t be integrated.
I still want someone to ask Obama this 3 questions:
“Why do you think that same-sex marriage should be a stahtes’ rights issue, but integration should not be a states’s rights issue?”
“In my religion, we marry same-sex couples. You have said that ’religion is in the mix’ when it comes to same-sex marriage. Why should your, or anyone else’s religion take precedence over my religion when formulating laws?”
“Since you think religion should be considered when formulating civil and human rights, do you think that the beliefs of white-supremacist churches should be considered in legislating civil rights for blacks or foreign policy with Israel?”
Actually the ball’s in Anderson’s courtHe just SAT THERE when Barry mouthed lies about the law being “constitutional” when its never been put to that test – and should surely fail if it were.
People keep askingthe same question, and he and he keeps giving the same answer.
Some people are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that if they want DADT repealed, their first priority ought to be targeting Congress.
The president is not, with the flick of a pen, going to simply ignore the law. He wants it changed. If people feel so strongly about this issue the ought to spend more time harassing the very people who’s constitutional obligation is to change the laws.
That’s not meI’m an equal opportunity harasser. I can also multi-task. So, I will go after Obama at every opportunity, as well as my other elected officials, and lots of other folks that need a jolt.
Discharges under DADThave been challenged in court for years and the discharges in most cases have been upheld by the courts. SCOUTS has declined to hear other cases.
The law has never been deemed “unconstitutional” by any court. In fact, most dismissals brought before the court have be upheld. Besides, is their any doubt in your mind that SCOUTS would uphold the law?
When more is less….
Actually, Old Brit, the one denomination that Obama has been associated with, the United Church of Christ, DOES support marriage equality…so his statement to Catholic media last week that he has to “wrestle” between his “faith” and gays is not just INDEFENSIBLE and INSUFFERABLE for the head of a nation which is supposed to enforce a separation of Church and State but also inexplicable. [Don't blame recent FOB Rick Warren. Obama's been defending his marriage bigotry in the name of Jesus at least since 2004 when he ran for the US Senate.]
As for Harry Reid, recall he DID take questions from The Advocate about DADT and he said that he hoped Obama would “administratively” stop discharges, which his aide said meant issuing an executive order, until Congress could repeal. Last time I looked, Reid didn’t have a reputation for throwing Constitutional Molotov cocktails. But back to this interview…
That sound you hear? Actually, it’s two sounds.
The first is Blah…blah…blahdety blah blah…with whipped cream lies and a cherry picked fact or two on top.
The arbiter of “constitutionally valid”…the US Supreme Court…has never ruled that DADT is. Time for “the best student” Harvard Constitutional law professor [and Obama apologist] Lawrence Tribe “ever had” to take a refresher course.
“changed in a way that ultimately works well for our military”?
“CHANGED”???….Danger, Will Robinson! They’re avoiding the “REPEAL” word again…. Remember, St. Obama declareth, “Words matter.”
Will a reporter finally PLEASE ask WHAT THE HELL “in a way that ultimately works well for our military” and “all the ramifications” MEANS the next time His Holiness…or Gibbs…or Gates…or Mullen…throws up a barrage of bullshit like this????
All through the Presidential campaign…all the MANY times he promised to fight for REPEAL the moment he took office he never mentioned any “ramifications” blah blah blah.
Despites his lame attempt to dodge, he already IS oh so CONVENIENTLY ignoring a law passed by Congress: “10 United States Code § 12305,” titled “Authority of THE PRESIDENT to SUSPEND CERTAIN LAWS RELATING TO Promotion, Retirement, AND SEPARATION” which trumps 10 U.S.C. § 654 aka DADT. It says, IN BLACK AND WHITE [annotations mine]:
“Notwithstanding ANY other provision of law [INCLUDING DADT], during any period members of a reserve component are serving on active duty pursuant to an order to active duty under authority of section 12301, 12302, or 12304 of this title, THE PRESIDENT MAY SUSPEND ANY PROVISION OF LAW [INCLUDING DADT] relating to promotion, retirement, OR SEPARATION [AKA DISCHARGES] applicable to ANY MEMBER OF THE ARMED FORCES [INCLUDING GAYS] who THE PRESIDENT DETERMINES is essential to the national security of the United States.”
Contrary to the dishonest Obambots, including WAPO, use of that LAW which CONGRESS PASSED…
1. Is NOT repeat NOT “overturning” DADT. It merely, LEGALLY overrides it.
2. Nor is it analogous to abuse of “signing authority” Nor is it an “end run around Congress” because it is a power CONGRESS HAS EXTENDED to the Executive Branch because they understood that in times of national emergency, such discretion by the Commander-in-Chief is entirely appropriate.
If they had thought that discharging gays was the one kind of “separation” that the President should be prevented from stopping under 12305 they would have specified that in the statute. THEY DID NOT. They left the decision about ALL discharges, overriding ALL other laws, up to the President in a time of “national emergency” which by THEIR definition we are in NOW!
Others may be too stupid to be able to hold such a two laws/one trumping the other thought in their heads, but Barack Obama is not. Neither is Harry Reid. Nor The New York Times. Nor The New Republic. Ad infinitum.
By refusing to stop the discharges of Arabic linguists like Iraq veteran Lt. Dan Choi when we continue to be so short of linguists as we were when that shortage resulted in failure to translate in time a terrorist message intercepted the day BEFORE 9/11 …and decorated combat veteran/flight nurse Maj. Margaret Witt when the Air Force has a shortage of flight nurses …and experienced fighter pilot Iraq veteran Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach the case can be made that Obama is guilty of dereliction of his duty as our President and the Commander-in-Chief.
WAIT! The case has already been made!
“WHO would dare suggest such a thing?” you ask.
No less than Barack Obama….unintentionally, of course, when he declared to gays at the White House on Monday, June 29th, 2009:
“preventing patriotic Americans from serving our country weakens our national security.”
WHY is he continuing to weaken national security, why is he not using the power GIVEN HIM BY CONGRESS???
Well, he revealed the answer to Lt. Col. Fehrenbach on June 29th: “there’s a generational gap.”
TRANSLATION:
That’s the second sound you hear. It’s the sound of the Pentagon tails wagging the dog …..and the dog is letting them…and I don’t mean Bo.
No, he has NOT answered the question…
…he dodged it.
And he IS ignoring A LAW far more important than DADT…10 USC 12305…and weakening national security in the process.
See below. [Actually, I don't mean YOU see below, Geek, because...well, "civility" prevents me from saying.]
Wrong.
We hope you meant to write that SCOTUS has “declined to hear” ALL DADT cases.
THEY have not “UPHELD” dismissals except in the de facto sense of denying certiori.
Whether they would uphold the law is beside the point. The President misrepresented the legal facts.
Hypocrisy or just a lack of consistency?
So how does he reconcile his signing statements with what he said? Either he obeys and enforces the laws that Congress passes or he reserves the right to interpret them on his own (something that is supposed to be left up to the Judicial branch). A signing statement is his way of interpreting a new law, so he’s obviously made his decision with regards to laws passed by Congress. Yet clearly he picks and chooses which ones to enforce and of which ones to change the interpretation.
There’s only one note on your piano, isn’t there?How many times does it have to be pointed out to you that DADT–the law as passed by Congress–includes a provision stating that the president shall decide how the policy is implemented. The law itself gives him the power to suspend enforcement. So obviously he would not be violating or “ignoring” the law by suspending enforcement. Even Harry “the Mormon” Reid has said so.
But the next time this subject comes up, you’ll still be droning out the same line: “He can’t ignore the law.”
We’ve long since given up any hope that you’re capable of absorbing a simple fact. But is it too much to hope that you might find a new line of argument, and stop boring us with this?
I caught that too
He’s definately moved his position from outright repeal to “changed”.
This is going to be an uphill battle all the way. He has no intention of doing anything. His campaign promises were bunk.
There’s no difference when the stakes are this high…
I’m not sure what signing authorities by Obama you mean, but lack of consistency is when you carry your black purse with your Chanel suit one day and your red purse with it another day.
Obama’s cherry picking laws to enforce is HYPOCRISY!
Given that he doesn’t want to ignore laws passed by Congress……does that mean that he’s also going to stop issuing signing statements?? After all, that didn’t work so well for him last week.
He didn’t give the answers I wanted to hear, but I like that he didn’t flinch, feign ignorance or shut down the question. Although my “sooner” is earlier than his “sooner,” I still think he’s going to get it done.
Be it Obama or Gibbs….
Anytime this subject comes up, I hear the adults from the Peanuts specials…”wuh-wah-waaah-wuh-wah” gibberish.
Hmmm. Gibbs. Gibberish. Must be a connection.
This is the real issue…
Its not that it woun’t get done, its that people keep demanding that it be done now (as if there is suddenly some great urgency that was not there last year or the year before).
I’m sure that the President is fully aware that it will get repealled in the next few years. They just do not think that there is any sudden need to rush.
Anderson always just sits there
Is there NO depth to which you will not go…
…to make excuses for Obama? Now you’re dismissing the damage to the lives of gays being discharged, not to mention to national security.
“(as if there is suddenly some great urgency that was not there last year or the year before)”????
Obama could deliver on every promise to us tomorrow and I would still never forgive him for having brainwashed some gays into choosing HIM over their community no matter what.
I repeat, if the gay community were a country you would be guilty of treason.
exactly!
Thankfully its notAnd I therefore cannot be coerced into following in lockstep behind anyone.
Again, is there suddenly some great urgency that did not exist last year, or the year before that, or the year before that? If the nation and the community could patiently wait through the Bush years, then it is not to much to ask to wait a bit during the Obama years.
Please, send us a copy…
Please send us a copy of the updated-weekly Throwing Bullshit Excuses for Our Lord & Savior Barack Christ Against the Wall & Hoping They Stick Guide.
Though you didn’t correctly quote the full dishonest excuse which typically includes the more explicit, “Why weren’t people protesting when Bush was President?”
Well, they were, Geeky, and no one was fucking “patient” when Bush was President.
Certainly not the legislators who introduced the DADT repeal bill. Certainly not the people filing lawsuits against DADT. Certainly not the gay vets who organized the Tour of Duty to educate voters about DADT in 2006 and 2007 [covered in the recent documentary Ask Not]. Certainly not those who planted 12,000 flags on the Capital Mall in 2007 … one for each of the gay servicemembers discharged under DADT by then. Certainly not SLDN and AVER and HRC and NGLTF and Lambda Legal and the ACLU and and and…
NO ONE could have faulted them if they’d done none of that during the Dark Ages of the Bush II years for unlike your Massa Obama Bush did not run on explicit promises to fight for repeal the moment he took office. He did not say over and over after taking office that he wanted it repealed…and then do the opposite.
What IS the same is that
like Bush OBAMA IS DEFENDING DADT IN COURT.
like Bush OBAMA IS DISCHARGING GAYS DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY.
and like Bush Obama has his own invincibly ignorant, lockstep, head up the ass so far they could tickle his tonsils apparatchiks.
An Airmen’s perspectiveThe two things that are most concerning for the military are retention and hate crime prosecution. You can retire at 20 years, but many people chose to stay in longer. There are a lot of anti-gay people in the military, and they are, because of generational gap, the most experienced people. If all the people in the pipeline for late retirement take early retirement instead, we lose the most technically proficient people (even if they are bigots) and they take time to replace. Also, despite public statements otherwise, the US military is one of the last places where gay hate speech is socially positive. In a perfect world the military could prosecute all the cases, once a legal homosexual community began to report them. The reality is, the military is cash strapped and overworked already. Losing senior leaders (even bigoted ones) and perhaps 5% of the rank and file to corrective custody is simply not doable with a multi-front war. Hammering to the military “we’re going to do this, honest, seriously, any day now, gays in the military” allows the bigots to get out gradually and allows for slow cultural change in the military.
Pam, you’re way too smart to be getting your info from Americablog!At least you recognized that there was nothing new in the interview. But Aravosis is lying about it left and right.
Chris Geidner debunks here: http://lawdork.net/2009/07/14/…
Besides,didn’t he say during the campaign that he thinks DADT is unconstitutional? Not sure I have a clear memory of it, but I’m pretty sure he did. And if it wasn’t DADT, it was DOMA–which he is enforcing/defending too.
Fact check, Geek?
We all know you have a problem keeping track of reality, so it has obviously slipped your mind that “last year or the year before,” we didn’t have a president who had promised to repeal the bloody thing.
If you have to keep trying to defend the indefensible, couldn’t you at least come up with a few arguments that have the surface appearance of making sense? Is it too much to ask that you not bore us to death repeating the same twaddle in every thread?
We are already losing “technically proficient people.”Experienced combat pilots. Arab-language translators. And a lot more. The same argument you’re making could have been made (and probably was) when Truman integrated the military in the late 40s.
And “losing senior leaders…and perhaps 5% of the rank and file” is already happening…under DADT.
Even Obama himself has said that DADT hurts our national security (though of course he won’t do a damn thing about it).
Deepthroating Geidner’s Kool Aid is anything but smart
Americablog has its excesses but it is more consistently right about Obama [whom Aravosis ferociously wanted elected BTW] than Geidner whose only consistency is making excuses for Lord Obama. His focusing on the debated aspect of the incest part of Obama’s DOJ DOMA brief while ignoring its NONdebated-by-anyone-objective loathsome defense of DOMA as not just constitutional but not even discriminatory against gay couples is a perfect example.
And he didn’t “debunk” Aravosis re this interview…his take is different, which he’s entitled to even if it’s motivated by his tireless agenda of making excuses for the Promise Betrayer-in-Chief. That’s his right, as indefensible and despicable as it is, but his declaring that difference of opinion “facts” is one of the reasons lawyers are among the least respected, most hated of professions.
But I didn’t see where even he accused Aravosis of lying as you have.
Finally, I can’t speak for other posters, but I trust that several of them, as I, did not need to read Aravosis comments to see the dishonest bullshit in Obama’s dodge of Cooper’s question.
So, I’ll thank you to not imply that we’re stupid.
Yes, but.. (more bogus arguments)Well, first of not I didn’t say that I shared the military perspective, just what I thought it was. Personally, I think limiting potential volunteers by sexual preference is a stupid, stupid, idea. And far worse things were said with the racial integration.
But I am not sure that racial integration is an ideal comparison here. It’s not like gays can serve openly in their own all gay units, and we now need to integrate those units into the rest of the Air Force. It’s more like black people having to pretend to be white so they could join, and congress debating a law to about whether or not they could stop wearing the mask.
Remember that most of the military’s most destructive race riots occurred not at the time of integration, but some years later during an unpopular war. Travis Air Force base (a major South Asian air hub) was completely locked down because of riots. Consider we are likely to have a large presence in Afghanistan for several decades.
I’m not saying these are valid reasons to not lift DADT. I’m just saying bigots have rational, if ultimately false, reasons for what they believe in this case.
Apples, oranges….
The four-day race riot at Travis, a smaller incident on a Texas AF base, and incidents on the Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawke, the oil carrier Hassayampa, and a larger one on the carrier USS Constellation, were primarily the result of the military not keeping up with the changing civilian times. Blacks entering the forces would no longer put up with blatant discrimination and harassment while too many whites were still allowed to manifest the civilian racism they brought with them.
The Travis riot was triggered by a variety of issues from serious concerns about discrimination in off base housing to arguments over the playing of “white music” versus “black music.”
While bigotry is bigotry is bigotry, things are different enough in 2009 that even if all gay servicemembers did come out upon a freeze or repeal [which would NOT happen] there is no reason to believe there would be anything like the military racial conflict of the ’70s.
And 70 is the percent of straight servicemembers who told pollsters that they felt comfortable around gays, and the percentage is higher the younger the group surveyed.
What is MOST relatable between military experience of racial integration and the proposed gay integration is that leadership, education, and zero tolerance for expressions of racism were what turned the military from a model of institutionalized racism to a model of relative racial harmony and equal opportunity.
- Michael Bedwell
http://www.leonardmatlovich.com