Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell :: 5 Step Plan
The Center for American Progress (CAP) has issued a five-step plan for repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” that begins with an executive order suspending gay discharges. According to the Palm Center, 77 members of congress (more than enough) are asking President Obama to suspend the ‘gay ban’.
According to the report, “President Obama should issue an order prohibiting the Secretary of Defense… from establishing, implementing, or applying any personnel or administrative policies, or taking a personnel or administrative action, in whole or part on the basis of sexual orientation.” The report says that this would “include banning further dismissals on the basis of DADT.” The legal basis for issuing such an order derives from the president’s “stop-loss” authority.
The plan is contained in a new CAP report called “Ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: Practical Steps to Repeal the Ban on Openly Gay Men and Women in the U.S. Military,” and was written by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean E. Duggan, and Laura Conley.
He is Following in President’s Footsteps
Many have said that President Obama already should have already issued an executive order on gay troops. This is the great failure of Clinton. Clinton was already to utilize an executive order to end the ‘gay ban’, but wanted to play nice. The compromise, “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell”. Which any gay person in military can tell you, is worthless. An executive decision would have stopped all the firing of liguistics needed in the middle east. An executive decision would have made our military stronger instead of relying on Blackwater/Cheney contractors. An executive dicision would have stopped many shattered lives.
Aaron Belkin, Palm Center director, “The White House acts as if an executive order and legislative repeal are mutually exclusive options,” he said. “The whole point of the executive order is that it untangles the political stalemate and paves the way for legislative repeal.”
Look to the Past
President Obama just need to look at the President Clinton dicision to not end the ban in our volunteer based military. Clinton’s attempts to pander and play nice, didn’t change a thing. But lets go back to the 50’s and 60’s. Barry Morris Goldwater Republican was a five-term United States Senator from Arizonaand the Republican Party’s nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as “Mr. Conservative.”
“You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.”
~ Barry Goldwater
If Obama wants to be the kind of President he promised then he must end DOMA, Military ‘Gay Ban’, higher education affordable, provide health care for every US Citizen and bring all troops home.
He was not elected to play nice with others . . . it was about becoming more than inside the beltway. It is time to stop leading a failing Empire; the United States needs that smart President Obama of “Hope” “Change” that got him elected. It is time for Obama to be Obama.