Tweet
So who is the entity playing hardball with these patriotic LGBT service members who called for repeal of DADT with direct action today? This sounds like something out of the Bush Administration. John @ Americablog:
Dan’s representative just called the DC Central Cellblock, where Dan and James are being held. I’m told it’s a nasty place. They report that they’re not giving Dan a phone call. So he doesn’t get bail. He’s reportedly going to see a judge tomorrow. Something is going on.UPDATE: We have more information. This is increasingly disturbing. It increasingly looks as though someone has decided to play hardball with Dan and James. The Park Police say that Dan is not being released on bail. Dan also has not made his phone call to the person designed to pay his bail – the person’s phone number is written on Dan’s arm, so there’s no chance he doesn’t have it. That means that Dan apparently is not being permitted a phone call, and thus not being permitted to have anyone pay his bail. Why not? We have just learned that Dan is in fact being charged with “failure to obey a lawful order,” yet that charge usually means you get processed, you pay bail, and you leave. Then why are they not letting Dan Choi leave, but instead are holding him to be arraigned? Why are they apparently not permitting Dan his phone call?
Oh — I forgot to do my own speculating. I suspect that at least Dan will be taken out by military police and charged under military rules. Will there be a military perp walk — one can only hope cameras will be there for that — all occurring on this President’s watch.
* Breaking: Lt. Dan Choi chains himself to White House fence during DADT protest; arrested
50 Comments
Apparently it is about wearing camouflageFrom CNN: Both Choi, who is currently serving in the New York Army National Guard and is not on active duty status, and the other man were wearing what appeared to be Army camouflage uniforms, which Lt. Col. Richard Goldenberg of the New York National Guard said would be a violation of Army rules. “Utilizing the Army uniform for political speech or political gain is an Army violation,” he said.
It is sad
that wanting equality is dismissed as just politics.
Treating Dan in a manner that would appear maliciousor retalitory is bad strategy, as you allude. A military perp walk will, on the whole, do Dan’s image more good than bad. It will not deter Dan from speaking out. He knew when he came out on the Rachel Maddow show he was taking on a big ugly fight. He won’t back down.
And all the public relations metrics are mostly in his favor. Only teabaggers will want his head (or will they? He kind of made a statement opposing Obama…. They may be torn, lol.)
Police treating him unnessarily harshly will do nothing to tamp down the growing anger and frustration of the LGBT activists. It will enrage them even more.
The Powers That Be should think long and hard now about how to deal with Dan’s behavior smartly. Because if they try to crucify him, the LGBT community will stand with Dan, and so will a lot of other folks. Lots of straight folks over at the Daily Kos reacted to the WH incident with, “You go Dan!”
Sucks but…That’s not regular defiance in his eyes, that’s Muhammad Ali level defiance. The irony is that he is exactly the kind of person we want to have protecting us. Give them hell guys!
Lt Dan Choi and Capt James PietrangeloAt http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/ there is an interesting back-piece about Lt Choi speaking at the HRC event and a graphic demonstration of how the HRC hasn’t and doesn’t work in our best interests. This HRC Group is the foundation of the formation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because they helped to hang Clinton out to dry when he came to our aid.
The uniforms may be the issue but I suspect this is more of a free speech issue when the dust settles.
Dan Choi and James Pietrangelo are true American Patriots and Heros for the LGBT Community and the American people in general. We need more like him.
Indeed – Don’t make a martyrThey’d be stupid to make a martyr of Choi. This is going to blow up in Obama’s and Pelosi’s faces if they aren’t careful.
oh, I say!“Utilizing the uniform for political speech.” Like Trooper Wharton of the Household Cavalry? His government seemed rather pleased with him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…
And they seem to think that we’re crazy over here. Hard to argue that.
All very matter-of-fact. His only problem is with his being a Britney Spears fan. Egad!
NYC Stonewall Democrats plan Support protest TOMORROWStand with Dan Choi. Stonewall Dems Plan to Protest DADT - Fri Mar 19 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Times Square Army Recruitment Office
“President Fierce Advocate”? Yeah, right.So, President Mr. Fierce Advocate of Civil Rights:
Let’s see: No LGBT progress. Gitmo still open. Now this – arrests without Miranda rights.
Can anyone see a pattern here?
Choi Knew The RegulationsAnd he chose to break them. DADT aside, the fool is manifestly unfit to be a military officer. No officer with any common sense or respect for the uniform would chain himself to the White House fence. He’s an idiot, an egomaniac, and a loose cannon. Unfortunately, he has just turned himself into a walking argument for the idea that gay people shouldn’t be allowed into the military because, when it comes to their own egos vs. military regs, they’ll choose their own egos.
Yeah, of course the kool-aid drinkers here, along with the other activists who disrespect the military to begin with, will love Choi and what he did. But I guarantee you that gay people who are serving in the military have a different view of that drama queen.
Did he willingly demand unequal enforcement?Sure, since we’re talking about an act of civil disobedience we can say it’s probably pretty safe to suggest that he knew and accepted the legal repercussions of his actions.
Is that the same as accepting the actions of people who demand extra punishment — even before charges are addressed in court, let alone brought to a verdict — for actions contrary to law motivated by a drive for equality or a stand on ethical principle rather than personal gain? Yes, he probably knew he was breaking the law — does that justify abandoning the standard procedure with similar legal cases to “make an example” of someone who was slightly to the left of the official line? Hell, “using the uniform to make a political point” isn’t treated as illegal at all when it’s a right-wing authoritarian “point” being made.
ugh.hey, where’s that dipshit that kept saying “we just need to give Pwezident Obama more TIME!”
TURKEEremember “PREZIDENT GIV ME TURKEE”?
He broke the lawhe should go to jail. Anything else is just partisan noise.
yawnAnd Obama is a muslim too!11!!
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I think that it’s quite obvious that he is a christian(coming from an ex-xian).
there is!speak of the devil!
Exhibit AQscribes usual response…noise.
Choi’s actions are AWE-inspiringin every sense of the word.
http://dictionary.reference.co…
Therefore, I am not surprised to see the range of commentary on this (ranging from inspiration to revulsion to fear and even to disgust).
That’s what this action was designed to do. And in that aspect, this worked brilliantly.
That’s why Choi’s wearing of the uniform was necessary.
Now it’s up to us to determine what this action means in the bigger scheme of gay civil rights.
Just out of curiousity,are you done yet? You keep repeating the same thing, which is also noise. You made your point (ok, I think that you did because I gave up and haven’t bothered reading most of them from you, Jake Jackson, and Michael Bedwell due to sheer boredom so I could be wrong with this) and it’s time to move on and to stop hijacking threads. It got really old a long time ago. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..
NoFeel free to keep on steppin if you don’t like what I have to say.
Likewise.It’s not what you are saying, it’s the mind numbing repetition. Don’t you have anything else to do today?
Hear! Hear! N/T
err …
Speaking as someone who served as an Army officer for more than 20 years, I would say that respect in a command relationship is a mutual deal. Sure, if Lt. Choi was a serving officer, and he was doing this on government time, sure this would be a serious matter. But he is pending discharge under DADT, after a career in which he gave a lot more in effort and devotion than he’s getting back now, and yes, this is a public act of civil disobedience.
If there’s any justice, DADT would be history and Lt. Choi would be back at work, with, at most, a verbal reprimand.
Oh, and if LGBT people wanting to serve in the military is somehow disrespecting the military, it suggests something of a logical disconnect here, not just deeming us as uppity.
well, yes, there is a patternHe doesn’t mean what he says. Or, perhaps the Commander-in-Chief is, in fact, neither.
I didn’t expect him to be another FDR, but I wasn’t expecting Neville Chamberlain, either.
Lt. Choi is a true hero….how can anyone sit back & call this man a fool? You should be ashamed of yourself, the man put everything on the line for your rights & this is how you talk about him? Testicular envy much? (Lt. Dan must have them the size of bowling balls) You only wish you were 1/10 as brave!!
Where’s Lurleen?Isn’t she supposed to be policing “personal attacks”?
Back At YaWhen Choi spoke publicly against DADT on television, I supported him. But not when he chained himself to the fence. He is familiar with military regs, which prohibit wearing the uniform at political rallies. (You might remember that last year, the military went out of its way to reinforce that regulation within the ranks.) You are supposed to follow civilian laws, and to conduct yourself with dignity.
If you really were an officer for 20 years, then you know that the expectation of compliance with these rules rises with your rank. Officers have a great deal of authority. They can, and do, lead people to their deaths. They cannot openly break regulations.
Choi’s legal status within the military is incidental here. He is presenting himself to the public as a military officer. He is arguing that a gay officer is just as qualified as a straight one. And then he goes out and openly flouts regulations and customs that are known to everyone in the military.
This isn’t a matter of my somehow agreeing with DADT. That couldn’t be further from the truth. My issue is with Choi himself. He is unfit to be an officer, and I don’t think someone who’s unfit to be an officer ought to be leading the charge against DADT.
Out of CuriosityI’d love to see Choi’s complete records. I wonder what led him to go public to begin with. Someone who’s a loose cannon at one time likely had other problems with military regulations, apart from DADT. That’s my guess.
nunyahow would that be any of your business?
more to the pointLt. Choi knows his career is over; this is a form of self-immolation. He certainly knows that. DADT aside, the military doesn’t like bad publicity, and even if DADT is repealed and he is reinstated he probably won’t get promoted past captain. But, he’s being removed because of his sexual orientation, so it all becomes moot.
I did find his Barbara Fritchie act a trifle over-the-top, but he was trained as a soldier, not as a theater director. Let’s make some allowances, shall we?
However, I do ask that you distinguish between the subject of this discussion, who is holding himself out — literally — as a public statement, and those of us who do have legitimate concerns about DADT, some of that from long experience. I “guarantee” that our views do vary. A little respect is due there, too.
who gets jurisdiction?Another interesting question is who even has standing to prosecute him? If Lt. Choi is not on Active military duty, Art. 2 of the UCMJ doesn’t extend jurisdiction over him. If he is on some kind of National Guard status as opposed to Federal (Title 32 status instead of Title 10, is the jargon) the state of New York might have some arcane law on it, although this is taking place in DC. However, it’s likelier that some impersonating-an-officer statute, Federal, might apply — which means at that point that Eric Holder has a decision to make.
It could look rather petty, even futile, if a Federal disorderly-conduct rap is all they can bring.
Qscribe’s Customary Stupid Response
It’s Not My BusinessI didn’t say I would ever see ‘em, but I’ll always be curious. I wonder what other disciplinary problems Choi has displayed.
I Have Always Distinguished Between Choi and DADTI have made a point of doing that in my commentary. My issue is with Choi, period. As soon as he pulled the fence chain stunt, I think Choi lost any credibility as a spokesman on the issue.
As for whether he was trained as a soldier or a theatre director, from what I’ve been seeing, Mr. Choi shows every sign of having known his way around the high school drama club. That fence stunt was stagey egotism ill-befitting someone who’s been holding himself out to the general public as officer material.
Come on, what officer would purposely violate regulations against political protesting in uniform, and against willful violations of civilian law? What officer would make such a drama club spectacle out of himself?
People can like Choi as much as they want, but he doesn’t belong anywhere near an officer’s billet in the U.S. military. An egotistical drama queen like him can’t be trusted with the authority, frequently up to and including the ability to send people to their deaths. Off-off Broadway? Check. The military? No way.
captain’s log supplemental!Judging by one of Pam’s posts, today, they were in a DC courthouse. Footnote.
well, he wasn’t in uniform next morningPam’s later post, about their appearance in DC court. Photos show all of their uniform insignia, including their names, missing. Just a blank set of BDUs.
Usually they wait till after the court-martial to tear your buttons off. Even Lt. William Calley got to go to court in full Class A uniform, with all the thingies on.
TechnicalitiesThe UCMJ applies if the New York Guard has been federally activated, and none of us knows one way or the other. We also don’t know whether or not the New York Guard has simply adopted the UCMJ themselves, maybe be incorporation under some New York law.
Whether Choi could be prosecuted under the so-called Stolen Valor Act is theoretically interesting, although I did notice a comment somewhere online today to the effect that some of the patches present on Choi and the other guy’s uniforms were missing today. Who knows, maybe someone had a talk with them about it.
But all of this is pretty much beside the point. What matters here is that Choi’s claim to notoriety is based on his presentation of himself as someone who, other than being gay, is fully qualified to be a military officer, by virtue of his background as a West Point cadet and prior service in the military.
For all intents and purposes, he’s like one of the Holiday Express commercials: He’s playing an Army officer on TV. And the networks are all too happy to help him do it. If he’s going to do that, then he should play by the rules and customs that apply to military members, i.e., not wearing a uniform to a political rally or protest, and complying with civilian laws, and comporting himself with dignity.
He dumped on all of that when he chained himself to the fence. DADT or no DADT, the guy is in no way qualified to be an officer. He’s a high-strung, loose cannon, prima donna of a drama queen.
But now that we’re on technicalities, I am curious about something. I see that Choi spent a couple years in Iraq, and then transferred to the New York Nat’l Guard. Given his West Point background, that strikes me as really unusual. I don’t ever expect him to release his military records, but something tells me they’d make interesting reading.
Choi’s Career and “Self Sacrifice”I re-checked the dates of Choi’s career. He graduated from West Point in 2003 and went to Iraq in ’06 and’07. He transferred to the New York National Guard in ’08, after five years as an Army officer and a year before he made his splash on Rachel Maddow’s show.
In five years, this West Point graduate never rose above lieutenant, and then he switched to a state national guard unit. Sorry, folks, but this was not a rising star. This was a problem child. Exactly what problem, none of us can say. But his dates of service and (lack of) career path indicate that he screwed the pooch long before his “brave” and “self-sacrificing” action on the media battlefront.
This puts his latest stunt in a different light. Long time ago, the Army decided they didn’t want him. And don’t tell me that happens to every gay officer. There are plenty of gay field grade officers, and I reckon more than a few flag officers too.
So, “Lt.” Choi, what’s your whole story?
well, as long as we’re conjecturing –It’s possible that he decided, after his mandatory post-West Point five years, that he better find himself another career. An awful lot of LGBT servicemembers simply don’t re-up; a Reserve/National Guard career has a lot less to lose. Besides, after a certain point in the regular military, it starts reflecting on your career if you’re not married (het) or if it’s a bad marriage.
My guess is that he jumped before he was pushed.
That Doesn’t Explain ItLet’s imagine that Choi decided he no longer wanted to be in the Army. That brings up two questions. First, why go on national TV and pretend that being gay blocked him from the pursuit of a career? He’s already decided to leave.
Okay, so let’s say that he didn’t want to stay because he is gay and hated DADT. Then why stay in the National Guard? Okay, let’s say he figured that was somehow and easier place to be gay or something like that.
There is still what’s really the central question here: Why didn’t he make captain?
coram, you say you were an officer for 20 years, right? Well, then you surely know that, in the Army, promotion to captain is virtually automatic, and that the track has been four years. Maybe you don’t know that the Army has a captain shortage because of the wars, and has cut the track to 3-1/2 years. Or less.
Choi did five years active duty. He should have been a captain well before transferring to the New York National Guard. This is a West Point grad, and he missed a virtually automatic promotion? Come on, let’s be real here.
how the hell would either of us know what’s up with his career?What I do know is that the promotion track is a lot slower in the reserve components, more like seven years from O-1 to O-3, and Choi’s rank appears to be 1LT. And I’m not sure why we have an officer shortage now, since we (1) never expanded the order of battle after 9/11 in the way we did in WWII, or for that matter, Vietnam, (2) stop-lossed the Army, and (3) kept the TPFDL for the Iraq invasion to a bare-bones minimum.
I’d also like to hear from Lt. Choi why he chose to drop out of the RA and how he ended up in the NY ARNG. Good question, but no sense in guessing the answer. Or second-guessing him. If he’s going to make his military career a centerpiece of his argument, it’ll come out soon enough. Certainly someone at DCSPER or ARPERCEN might leak it if there’s anything derogatory in his 201 file.
I’d also like to hear from Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach on all this. Now there’s a career, 18 years’ worth.
I agree there are a lot of gaps in Lt. Choi’s story, but guesswork won’t fill it.
Choi Was Active For Five YearsThe promotion track to captain was shortened to 3-1/2 years, and some people do it faster. He’s a West Point grad, and never made it to captain? Come on, something ain’t right.
He already has made his military career the centerpiece of his argument. The only reason he hasn’t been quizzed on the details is that he’s faced friendly interviewers with no military background.
LOL reallyHouse homos love to talk shit on the internet about people who actually put their money where their mouths are.
This obsession of yours is bordering on pathological.Just sayin’. Did he dump you or something?
Your worship of the fool is what’s “pathological”
So, the “loyalty police” have arrived, I see.Or is the better term O-bots?
I made certain specific, founded criticisms of your beloved Obama, and your response was puerile, childish tripe.