Pentagon: No Plans To Repeal "Don't Ask"

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell today said there are no plans to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits openly gay troops from serving in the military.

President Obama vowed to repeal the controversial 1993 policy during the campaign, but according to Morrell, there have not been serious discussions between the White House and the military about doing so.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen are "aware of where the president wants to go on this issue, but I don't think that there is any sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Morrell said.

Morrell indicated that the White House has not formally sent a request to Congress to abandon the policy. He said there have only been "initial conversations in their early stages" about the situation.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/19/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5025511.shtml

[cboy4]

1. Okay, what is it President Obama. Are you going to do it

or not?

Just be honest either way and stop dragging teh gays along like this.

[lapfog_1]

2. If I ever get a chance to ask Obama a question

It will be "Are you the Commander in Chief, and if so, when will you start acting like it?"

We need to clean house in the military and remove the fundies and right wing idiots.

[cboy4]

3. +1

:thumbsup:

[pleah]

4. +2

Well said.

[GodlessBiker]

6. +3

[mopinko]

18. +4

[Thothmes]

17. What if the answer is that is not

in his plans?

[BR_Parkway]

5. Hmm, do "initial conversations" actually say Nope? Or that there hasn't

been a plan established as to how to go about implementing it?

Wording on this is pretty loose, even sensationalized a bit. That being said, it would be nice to hear that someone was actually doing something towards meeting this campaign promise.

[konnichi wa]

7. If there was actually some forward movement on this, you can bet the M$M would be

reporting it, if only to gin up the wingnuts. It sure seems like it's gone into the bitbucket.
:grr:

[defendandprotect]

10. Obama seems to have gotten a hot foot on the issue from someone . . .???

[zipplewrath]

12. One would expect

If there were any real long range plans, one would think that at the very least there would be a requirement for a study or implementation plan, including costs.

[BR_Parkway]

19. They've already done several studies - part of the significance

of Obama not appealing a recent decision to the SCOTUS about the DADT processing of (forgot woman's name) is that the court ruled that the US Govt has to prove that allowing gays to serve is detrimental somehow as a basis for upholding the policy - something that the court system up until now has always been willing to take for granted.

Don't know about implementation plans, but there have been cost analysis done several times at the request of Congress

[No Elephants]

8. FWIW, Barney Frank said Congress will act in 2010. He did not say whether that would be before or

after mid term elections, so it could concceivably be as late as November or December 2010. And Obama has falsely said that nothing can be done until Congress acts. So, there we are.

And, if Frank is correct, nothing says that something might not happen between now and 2010 that would cause people to stall more.

[defendandprotect]

9. Disgraceful . . . obviously, too many patriarchs in the Pentagon . . .!!!

[Zhade]

11. Gee, Obama's breaking another promise? What a shock.

NT!

[keopeli]

13. Obama has 3.5 years left to abolish DADT. I'll be patient.

But I (and many others) will campaign against him if he breaks this promise, and I think he knows that.

Fact: Bush left us a broken country. Obama has a lot on his plate.

I can be patient, even though it makes me cringe.

[LostinVA]

15. I refuse to be patient, because there is NO NEED to be "patient"

[konnichi wa]

16. There are, I'm quite sure, some DUers who'd like to see this fixed before we croak.

Not everyone here has the luxury of years in which to be patient. ;-)

[FriendlyReminder]

22. Yes, patience is the key but I'm still getting pissed at the snails pace

(or no pace) on some of these important initiatives. How long have we had to live with DADT?

[LostinVA]

14. Checkmate

[PurityOfEssence]

20. At least with Junior, you knew you were going to be stonewalled and used

(I'm using "stonewalled" in the old sense of stiff-arming, not referring to the riots.)

There's something at least somewhat refreshing about suffering under a reactionary regime: there are no dashed hopes; you know they suck and you know you don't count.

At some point, the bagmen for the "art of the possible" need to have some more possibilities shown them; then we'll find out whose side they're really on besides "everyone's".

There's also been a flowering of popular support for politics in the last campaign. If those people get disillusioned, it'll just hasten the return of the trogs. Many of us thought that the Republican Party was dead after the '92 election, yet in two short years they roared back and took the House in a huge way.

To a certain degree, I don't particularly mind that these cats are little more than standard-issue glad-handing politicians; I just wish that their acolytes would admit it.

Pretty damned pathetic.

[totodeinhere]

21. The GOP was also written off in both 1964 and 1976, and...

in both cases they were back in the White House four years later. We can't afford to let that happen again. Obama has got to live up to his campaign promises or he and the Dems are risking facing a massive voter backlash akin to the sort of thing that happened yesterday in California.

The time to repeal both DADT and the DOM is now. Not in 2010 or 2011. Now.

[PurityOfEssence]

23. Jim Hightower put it best:

"There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."

I'm just sick to death of the self-congratulatory self-deception of those who are convinced that our President is the standard-bearer for the common man, especially when it fuels their paranoid intstincts to quash any dissent. Yes, he's considerably better than the recent nazis, but that's just not saying much.