05/22/2009
White House Hammered Again on Military Gay Ban at Press Briefing
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked a follow-up question by Air America's Ana Marie Cox (I posted her first yesterday) on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in which Gibbs said that the Pentagon has corrected its statement on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and that there are active discussions.
Cox also asks why the President feels the need to go through Congress on the issue. Gibbs answers that "the only durable and lasting way with which to overturn the policy is to do it by law."
One wonders if the President has seen the Palm Center's recent study providing a blueprint for him to halt discharges and end the policy via executive order. Maybe Cox can ask that question next.
Watch it (and read the transcript), AFTER THE JUMP...
Yes, ma'am.
Q Actually, it's a follow-up from yesterday, since I didn't get a follow-up then, but you said yesterday that --
MR. GIBBS: Apparently that's your own fault. (Laughter.) I'm joking. I don't want to get into it. Look what you've done to me. You've got me in this place -- nature versus nurture. (Laughter.) Sorry, go ahead.
Q So you had said that the President is working with the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on "don't ask, don't tell," but earlier this week the Pentagon said that the conversations were "initial" and that there is "no sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell.'" So I wanted to give you a chance to correct the Pentagon on that.
And I have two other questions. What other policies are there --
MR. GIBBS: If you ask like that you're going to get bumped up to, like, the first row. (Laughter.)
Let me address the first question because, if I'm not mistaken, the Pentagon did correct that statement on efforts regarding the reform on "don't ask, don't tell."
Q So there are active conversations happening now?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. Yes.
Q Okay. And then I wanted to know if there are any other policies that the President believes to be, as you said yesterday about "don't ask, don't tell," not in our national interest but is content to let Congress take the lead on? And second, President Truman didn't see it necessary to clear desegregation through Congress, so how is this different?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe I was -- maybe I used some poor language, but the President is involved in these discussions. It was the President's commitment to overturn the policy that's not in our national interest that is the reason for these discussions and for the effort to overturn this. So I think the notion somehow -- the reason Congress is involved is the only durable and lasting way with which to overturn the policy is to do it by law. That's the --
Q So when can we expect a durable policy on racial desegregation in the military, since that's never gone through Congress?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I'm out of my depth as a lawyer. And I'm not exactly sure the timing of when President Truman did that, but my sense is that there were also some legal proceedings around that. Try as one may, a President can't simply whisk away standing law of the United States of America. I think that's maybe been the undercurrent of some of the conversations we've had over the past few days on Guantanamo Bay. But if you're going to change the policy, if it is the law of the land, you have to do it through an act of Congress.
Q And so there's pending legislation? I didn't see any.
MR. GIBBS: I don't know what's been introduced in Congress.
Posted 8:22 AM EST by Andy Towle in Barack Obama, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Military, News, Robert Gibbs | Permalink
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Go Ana! Glad she isn't letting this go and is continuing to push on it. I loved this:
Q So when can we expect a durable policy on racial desegregation in the military, since that's never gone through Congress?
Posted by: gabriel | May 22, 2009 8:47:19 AM
Oh, and I just can't stand Gibbs. Is it just me or do others get annoyed by his arrogance and ability to avoid questions.
Posted by: gabriel | May 22, 2009 8:48:18 AM
Ana Marie Cox deserves a medal.
Posted by: Hank Drake | May 22, 2009 9:10:39 AM
PWNED. Good for her -- nice to see someone in the Press gallery doing the job of the media.
Posted by: Strepsi | May 22, 2009 9:14:37 AM
That Ana Marie Cox is seriously awesome. The only way we're ever gonna get anywhere is to keep their feet to the fire. And Gabriel, I agree... that question about racial desegregation legislation was pure gold.
You go, Ana. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: The Milkman | May 22, 2009 9:46:10 AM
She is just all kinds of awesome.
Posted by: David D. | May 22, 2009 9:46:26 AM
If congress has to introduce legislation, Why haven't Tammy Baldwin or Barney Frank done so?
Posted by: Chris | May 22, 2009 10:10:36 AM
PWNED indeed - three cheers for her.
Posted by: PM | May 22, 2009 10:25:44 AM
Okay... Ana Marie Cox is officially my hero! She has single-handedly held the feet of the Obama administration to the fire on DADT and she is a HERO!!! Don't give up Ana Marie Cox!!!
Posted by: Jim | May 22, 2009 10:28:53 AM
Watching Rachel maddow was where I first /saw heard of Anna and I'm still so loving her.
Posted by: jimmyboyo | May 22, 2009 10:45:27 AM
Obama committed himself to ending DADT. What is he waiting for?
Posted by: FASTLAD | May 22, 2009 10:45:30 AM
He's just an apparatchik. Gibbs has only worked in politics -- he's never done anything else, which personally I think is terrible. Also, he's 38 but looks easily 10 years older.
He'll be gone soon enough.
Posted by: GBlad | May 22, 2009 11:09:11 AM
She's a lesson in how it needs to be done: persistence persistence persistence. Know what you're talking about, articulate it clearly and calmly, force them to try to defend the indefensible. Gibbs won't forget her. And he now must know that she and Rachel and the rest of us aren't going to let up or let them off the hook.
Posted by: Ernie | May 22, 2009 11:17:50 AM
Her question about "pending legislation" was clearly just another trap and he stepped into it. Can you imagine why the official White House Press Secretary, a brilliant, detailed pro, who's had egg run down his face day after day for non answers and contradictions....who set off multiple orgasms in Gay Land in January when he said in response to a question about whether Obama would fight for DADT repeal, "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it's 'Yes.'" ...would claim not to even know about the House repeal bill that OBAMA MENTIONED BY NAME in his lengthy, now apparently abandoned plan to fight DADT released in November 2007? "I will work with Congress and place the weight of my administration behind
enactment of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act." Another dodge? Alzheimers?
Too many, still drunk on the myth that's now as stale as New Year's Eve beer, are blaming Gibbs himself. "He's so incompetent.
How could the President hire him for this? Get the hook!"
Well, wake up and smell the wool over your eyes, kids! The fish rots from the top down. Few in politics know Obama as well as Gibbs. He was Obama's communications director when he ran US Senate, continued while Obama was in the Senate, and took the same powerful job in the Presidential campaign after Obama went back on his oft-repeated promise to finish his six-year term before running for Prez.
How far out out on a limb is it to guess that this silly spin is simply because he simply doesn't CARE. Because his boss, you know who, has made it clear to him that he doesn't have to care, BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHO NO LONGER CARES...assuming he ever did. The votes are in; lavender money's still coming in; why bother to even prepackage an answer so it even sounds good?
Lucky for the various straight and gay reporters that there's a camera around when they're challenging big gorilla Gibbs. During the primaries, Eric Resnick, of Ohio's "Gay People's Chronicle," recounted this exchange after a question about Donnie McClurkin:
"In my 12 years as a reporter, I have never experienced anything quite like Obama's national communication director Robert Gibbs. I wasn't biting on the crap he tried to feed me, and he got offended. When I stood there not writing any of it down, Gibbs said to me, 'Let me tell you how this works. I talk and you write down what I say'.
'I'll write down what you say when you answer the question', I responded, adding that 'I'm no campaign's stenographer'.
Gibbs actually took the pen and pad out of my hands and wrote his own answer! Would Gibbs treat a 'New York Times' reporter this way?"
Even Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, creator of Daily Kos, who was a rabid Obama supporter second-to-none, flamed Obama in 2007 for selecting Gibbs for that role, calling Gibbs a "smear-meister best known for his work trashing other Democrats. Obama clearly dipped into the slimiest corners of DC to pluck out Gibbs."
And from deep in one of those slimy corners, he and his boss have agreed to either stop investing even minimal energy in smile fucking gays on a promise that now sounds phony from the start OR cave into Pentagon homohaters.
Pick your poison. The result is the same either way.
Posted by: Leland Frances | May 22, 2009 11:27:22 AM
"Q So when can we expect a durable policy on racial desegregation in the military, since that's never gone through Congress?"
FUCKING AWESOME!
Always kind of liked her, now I love her.
This is how you handg the assholes by their own petard, boys and girls.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | May 22, 2009 11:36:18 AM
David, I think you mean hoisted by their own petard. It's hard to hang on a small bomb.
She definitely did that, though! Brilliant.
Posted by: KevinVT | May 22, 2009 11:56:35 AM
It's a great question
Q So when can we expect a durable policy on racial desegregation in the military, since that's never gone through Congress?"
but I'm not sure its factually correct or historically sensitive.
Although it is true Truman issued an Executive Order in 1948, it's not true that's the only action which led to racial integration of the armed forces. By implying that, Cox is discounting the history of discrimination against Black people and underestimating the state of discrimination against openly LGB people in the military.
When the executive order was issued a commission was also created to examine the state of racial discrimination in the armed forces.
In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled "separate but unequal" was unconstitutional in schools.
In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was enacted which included public accomodations (and I think) applied to the military as well.
I just think we need to have our ducks in a row when making analogies between the plight of Blacks in the 1940s-1970s and LGBTs in the current era.
Gay is NOT the new Black!
Posted by: Mad Professah | May 22, 2009 12:00:10 PM
"Durable" solution? If CIC Barack Obama were to issue a stop loss order, as is his right, it would be in force at least until Noon, Jan. 20, 2013. More likely, it would persist until at least Jan 20, 2017, if not longer. Those years would give first hand experience with glbt's integrated with the military. It would allow real time to prove or disprove the arguments against such integration.
Posted by: TomaHawk | May 22, 2009 12:43:44 PM
Meant to add that the millions of tax dollars that have been invested in the training of the glbt members of the military will not have been wasted as has been the case of the recent past. Additionally, new money will not be needed to train their replacements, if any can be found, replacements, that is. The taxpayer wins by getting full value for money spent and the gays get a win by being able to stay in their chosen profession.
Posted by: TomaHawk | May 22, 2009 1:03:45 PM
I'm afraid that Cox and Jake Tapper are going to end up banned from these press briefings...and be replaced with fake reporters like Jeff Gannon. Tapper reported the other day on what was basically a fake news clip made by the Obama White House a la the Bush White House, so it's not far fetched at all, unfortunately.
Posted by: paul c | May 22, 2009 1:10:47 PM
Truman's Executive Order: It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.
Obama's a pussy. Don't tell me wars and the economy are more important to America than Equal Rights. DON'T WAIT ANY LONGER!
Posted by: dc8stretch | May 22, 2009 1:13:47 PM
And to Tomohawks point: We already have first hand experience on how gays will affect morale and combat readiness- gays are already serving in the the military. They just can't say "yep, I'm Gay".
Posted by: dc8stretch | May 22, 2009 1:19:59 PM
JOURNALISM: UR DOIN IT RIGHT!!
(finally!)
Posted by: JustanotherJoe | May 22, 2009 4:30:32 PM
I agree that the stop-loss order is the way to go...
Posted by: Mad Professah | May 22, 2009 9:36:26 PM
Ya'll are hilarious. It's past the point where you can even be mocked for the ridiculous hand-wringing. It's already farcical.
Posted by: kj | May 23, 2009 1:05:20 PM