This can’t make the Obama WH political genius strategists happy, or Robert Gates, who recently made changes to make DADT policy “more humane” And the outing witch hunts, despite John McCain’s fantasies, still continue to this day, and all of this talk is focusing attention to this issue as the WH has to choose whether to defend this policy in court. (The Wonk Room, which has video):

Yesterday, as Republicans successfully filibustered the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, President Bill Clinton told CBS’s Katie Couric that when he signed DADT into law, he was promised a far more lenient policy:

COURIC: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, do you ever regret it as a policy?

CLINTON: Oh yea, but keep in mind I didn’t choose this policy. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was only adopted when both Houes of Congress had voted by a huge veto proof margin to legislate the absolute ban on gays in the military if I didn’t do something else…They made it clear they would never let me order my executive order, gays to serve in the military…. And I got beat and so did they gay rights people got beat. [...]

Now, when Colin Powell sold me on don’t pass, don’t tell, here’s what he said it would be: Gay service members would never get in trouble for going to gay bars, marching in gay rights parades as long as they weren’t in uniform, getting gay materials for any of the places they went or any of the things they did, as long as they didn’t talk about it. That was what they were promised. That’s a very different don’t ask, don’t tell than we got. What we got as soon as General Powell retired, was this vicious mid and lower level officer feedback when they for a year or so made it worse than it had been before. Then it sort fo settled down. But the reason I accepted it because it was better than an absolute ban and because I was promised it would be better than it was.

Clinton was assured that the military would not pursue witch hunts against gay soldiers, but his policy led to that and resulted in hundreds of other abuses. The regulations prevent the military from initiating cases, but they instruct commanders to begin investigations once a servicemembers’ orientation is known. As a result, the history of DADT is riddled with witch hunts and with discharges that feel like witch hunts. Soldiers were both unintentionally outed by circumstances outside of their control or illegally pursued by their commanders. “The fact that the regulations were tightened by [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates shows that there was plenty of room to tighten the regulations,” [Nathaniel] Frank told me.

But the bottom line is Clinton has to own the policy he helped put into place as a “compromise” to preserve his political capital. Here we are watching the legislative and political floundering to repeal the policy, with thousands of lives – ones dedicated to serving this nation – profoundly affected by the former president’s compromises.

You should surf over to The Palm Center to read “New legal analysis: White House can let judge end military gay ban.”

Today, the Palm Center released a new legal analysis prepared by Legal Co-Director and Law Professor Diane Mazur suggesting that the White House has a strong foundation for not filing an appeal to the recent case which declared “don’t ask, don’t tell” unconstitutional, Log Cabin Republicans v. United States.

The memo concludes: “The Department of Justice has discretion to decline appeal of Judge Phillips’s September 9, 2010 Memorandum Opinion in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States holding ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ unconstitutional. No mandatory duty or obligation requires the government to appeal.”