Sure, Obama might have just issued an executive order and done away with DADT with a pen-stroke. But rather than set himself against the Pentagon, Obama decided to utilize the chain of command to strengthen the case for a reversal of the statute. That’s classic consensus politics adapted for the reality of military culture, and yesterday brought the genius of the strategy into sharp focus.
No one in the military outranks Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yesterday he told a Senate committee the Pentagon will spend the next year studying how to end the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates seconded. Republicans on the committee responded with immediate resistance — and that is the point.
The optics of the issue are a complete contrast to 1993. Instead of attempted fiat, the White House has Republicans disagreeing with generals. At Huffington Post, Jason Linkins offers a roundup of past quotes from John McCain, who consistently maintained he would follow the military’s lead on DADT only to reverse himself yesterday:
Get that? Republicans are now in the position of second-guessing the military. This trend was visible as early as June of 2009. I once despaired over Obama’s choice of a Republican for Defense Secretary because I thought it fed into the (utterly false!) right-wing narrative that Democrats can’t run the Pentagon. But Gates has been a solid team player, especially on this issue, and now we have a significant cultural reversal — one that Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly website recognizes this morning, too.
There will be complaints from the left. Why wait a year? Well, it’s far less time than most weapons procurement decisions; and the policy has been in place for 17 years. Meanwhile, the armed forces are softening enforcement. Knowing the military culture, it will take at least a year for the brass to formulate the new policy; but the military always prefers to write its own policies because the needs of unit commanders are different from the political desires of elected politicians. They always respond to strong leadership, however, and Obama has been a stronger CIC than most people realize.
Of course, in the meantime there will be viral emails from armchair generals and veterans of previous conflicts. There will be ideologues demanding respect with their combat credentials in the lede. With respect, I look forward to smashing their stupid.
Adding: over at Stark Reports, Mike has some great interviews, including a voice-only quote from serial liar Jeff Sessions who was “visibly discomfited” by the topic.
Also adding: I’ve been linked by Wolfrum, who is a cool human being. Go give him some traffic.
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