Obama's State of the Union Opportunity on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

by Michael Jones · 2010-01-25 14:17:00 UTC
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President ObamaPresident Obama is set to give his State of the Union speech this Wednesday, and rumors are flying that during the primetime speech before Congress, Obama will take a few moments to talk about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." What will he say?

If he's smart, he'll say that the policy has been slowly strangling the U.S. military for sixteen long years, and that 2010 will mark the last year where "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" remains the law of the land.

According to Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, the White House has asked the Senate to hold off on hearings regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" until after Wednesday's address. Sen. Levin speculated that Obama might drop a juicy nugget from his podium high atop Congress: that military leaders favor repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

That should square well with the rest of the country, if true. Voters support a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in overwhelming numbers -- as in, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" polls better than furry puppies and long walks on the beach.

According to Sen. Levin, the Obama administration wanted to be the first to bring up overturning the military's ban on gay and lesbian soldiers. But Sen. Levin gave no indication what policy Obama might be introducing or discussing during his address.

"I don’t know if it was the White House, but somebody representing them from the Pentagon said that the President was expected, they thought, to state that policy in the State of the Union and they thought it made more sense for him to state the policy and for us to have a hearing right before the policy with the people who will be defending that policy. They don’t know what it is,” Sen. Levin said.

Earlier today, former Clinton White House official Richard Socarides raked Obama over the coals for plodding when it comes to the issue of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Socarides put it bluntly: our ability to win wars and keep the country safe is harmed by the enforcement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." There's no reason to delay overturning the policy.

Forty-eight hours from now, we'll see if that's the President's assessment, too. If he's thinking about the 13,000 soldiers who've been discharged from the military under this law, how could he not come to the same conclusion?

Photo credit: U.S. Army

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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