The WaPo had a good editorial today that emphasized the right points: the Supreme Court was right to say that publicly-funded colleges can’t restrict military recruiters based on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but the policy still needs to go.
The real problem, which [the Solomon Amendment] has tended to obscure, is that the military, even while fighting two wars, continues to root out Americans who wish to help by maintaining a policy that bars anyone who is openly gay. It robs itself of much-needed talent by way of their humiliation and exposure while forcing those in uniform to hide who they are.
This would be distasteful even if their presence in the military posed some real problem. But there’s no evidence of that. A combination of bigotry and inertia keeps the gay ban in place. Now that the military has proved it can constitutionally exempt itself from university nondiscrimination rules, Congress should decide whether it really wants a military that requires such an exemption.
Indeed, it should. Have I mentioned lately that a bi-partisan effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is up to 109 co-sponsors? Including Dems, Republicans, and an Independent? Have I also mentioned that this nonsensical policy is also terribly expensive?
And speaking of the controversial policy, FindLaw’s Matthew Segal recently wrote an interesting, outside-the-box kind of item comparing Bush’s support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and his warrantless-search program. It may not seem like there’d be any connection, but Segal argued, persuasively, that Bush shouldn’t be able to logically argue against one while defending the other.
In defending the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program, the Bush Administration has made two key claims about President Bush’s prosecution of the war on terrorism.
The first claim is that Bush has the power to take decisive action on national-security matters, instead of waiting for direction from a clumsy and feckless Congress, and that he exercises this power when necessary. Stressing the President’s Commander-in-Chief role, the Administration has argued that when it comes to the war on terrorism, Bush’s prerogatives control.
The second claim is that the NSA program demonstrates Bush’s unwillingness to let lesser concerns (such as civil liberties) trump his singular goal of protecting Americans from terrorism. The president’s “most important job,” Bush has said, “is to protect the security of the American people.” The Administration presumes its critics have other priorities. According to Bush advisor Karl Rove, they suffer from a “pre-9/11 worldview.” President Bush put it more bluntly when he said such critics “don’t think . . . that we are at war.”
What does this have to do with “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? As Segal explains, the policy is inconsistent with Bush’s broader approach to taking on terrorist threats. First, banning qualified service personnel from the Armed Forces is distinctly pre-9/11 thinking. And second, if the president believes he can circumvent any law in order to execute a war on terror, he could very easily ignore “Don’t ask, don’t tell” just as he has ignored FISA.
Voters … should ask, for example, why openly-gay Americans, no matter their love for this country, are not in fact privileged to serve in its thinly-stretched armed forces. Given that extremely security-conscious Israel has expressly allowed openly-gay soldiers to serve since 1983, and allowed openly-gay personnel to serve in sensitive intelligence positions since 1993, why is America so far behind–even after 9/11?
And here, answers surely can be given. The Administration claims it has security reasons for keeping the NSA program’s details top secret. But the topic of gays in the military cannot be avoided on the theory that discussions would somehow educate the enemy.
Nor can the Administration avoid discussing “Don’t ask, don’t tell” while still clinging to its sweeping view of executive power. It cannot be true that every single decision in the war on terrorism falls to the President, except whether to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” If that decision is the President’s to make, then its costs are his to defend.
Sounds right to me.