MSNBC: Obama to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

[Infinite Hope]

Chris Matthews just reported that.

[rockymountaindem]

1. Reported or opined? n/t

[TTUBatfan2008]

2. Excellent question...

Matthews is not a journalist. He's an opinionated commentator. He might have just been opining, like you said.

[AntiFascist]

17. I also saw a lengthy report on this at CNN...

maybe all of us 'complainers' are having an effect.

[TheWraith]

24. This has been Obama's stated position since the very beginning.

You would think after a two year campaign, people would know things like that.

[AntiFascist]

25. Of course I knew that...

I just found it interesting that it was suddenly being promoted as a news story in the mainstream media. They also seemed to indicate this would be happening "soon".

[TheWraith]

27. It's not being promoted, they're responding to questions about it.

The press is asking, they're answering, and the press is writing about it.

The only timeframe anybody is committing to at this point is some time this year. It does have to go through Congress, after all.

[AntiFascist]

28. And again, I find it encouraging that the press is specifically asking about this...

it means that they are responding to issues that their audience is interested in.

[TheWraith]

3. The Obama spokespeople have confirmed it many times.

It's part of their platform.

[firedupdem]

4. Chuck Todd on hardball says it could be a mistake.....

says he'll get caught up like Clinton did basically trying to appease gay folks? Suggested people will say he needs to concentrate on the economy and not this issue.

Damned if he does, Damned if he doesn't.

[Cha]

5. And, I don't like chuck todd so

his opinion means less than zero to me. :)

[Jennicut]

14. Chuckie T does not do politics well, numbers maybe

[Thrill]

18. I can't believe they picked him to be their WH correspondent

[Jennicut]

22. I know, really

[Cash_thatswhatiwant]

20. screw chuck todd. his opinions turn out to be wrong most of the time anyway. nt

[EraOfResponsibility]

26. Obama refuses to get caught up in that culture war bullshit

I don't think he'll trip up on that like Clinton did. Now, next stop: DOMA!

[Fleshdancer]

6. It's about time!

Great decision Obama!

[FLAprogressive]

7. good luck...the reactionary jackass Ike Skelton heads the House Armed Services committee

and he's an odious homophobe.

it seems that all the crappy "Dems" get the good committee chairmanships...I wonder why?

[Bucky]

8. What does that even mean?

Are gays going back to being more directly and openly hunted down in the military? Or is he going to do what Clinton should've done 16 years ago: issue a presidential directive to end orientation discrimination in the armed services?

[Rockholm]

9. One would hope that a directive would be issued.

On edit: bad spelling.

[TheWraith]

11. Technically you can't issue a directive to change the UCMJ.

Nor can you undo an act of congress with a directive. It has to go through the same process as any other bill.

And what do you think it means? "More directly and openly hunted down"? Like Obama's going to go backwards? :eyes:

[William769]

12. Well since you asked.

Well yes.

[TheWraith]

15. That's a very lovely rock you've been living under. :-) nt

[William769]

16. Yes it is.

It says GLBT on top of it. nuff said.

[shirlden]

19. What ????

Is Bush taking his "signing statement" pen with him??
Can we take up a collection and get one for Obama?

:dilemma:

[TheWraith]

23. Nothing to put a statement on--DADT is established US law.

As such, it needs to be repealed through the Congress.

[William769]

10. And now it's being reported it's being put on hold.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/14/obama.gays.military/index.html

Someone must not have gotten the meme.

[TheWraith]

13. Actually no, that's just CNN trying to create a story where there isn't one.

It's the same thing that Conyers said a week or two ago that was completely distorted by Politico, et al: that the economy is the highest priority, well ahead of anything as non-critical as DADT. That doesn't equate to "it's on hold" or, as Politico fantasized, that it was being put off until after 2010.

[Hope And Change]

21. Not at all.Read the article again...

During the presidential campaign, Obama said he would work to end the policy, but because it is dictated by federal law, he can not ended it unilaterally.

Congress must pass legislation overturning the policy, which was put into place at the beginning of the Clinton administration. Former President Bill Clinton tried to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when he took office in 1993, but he was strenuously opposed by the military leadership.

In the last Congress, a bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Massachusetts, that would have implemented "a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

The bill had 149 co-sponsors, but it never came up for a full vote in the House. It has yet to be re-introduced in the new Congress, which began last week.

"The key here is to get bills that pass the House and the Senate, that we can get to President-elect Obama to sign, and I think that we can do that, certainly, the first year of the administration," one of the co-sponsors, Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California, told CNN in November.

[Fearless]

29. Told you so.

:eyes: