Sec Gates to leave DOD in 2011, he says

8/16/2010 2:09pm by 2

And he’s been a major part of the problem the administration has been having with implementing a true full repeal of DADT in a timely manner. I’m not at all convinced, however, that things will be better when he goes. Gates isn’t the reason DOMA and ENDA are missing in action. He’s not the reason the President was for marriage equality in 1996, but today claims he isn’t.

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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  • Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com

    “[A] major part of the problem the administration has been having with implementing a true full repeal of DADT”? I believe “the source of the POLICY of the administration to abandon true, full repeal of the ban.”

    And let’s be fair! Give President Gates, excuse me, SECDEF Gates more credit than that. He’s also the guy who convinced Obama not to use his Congressionally authorized legal power to unilaterally end discharges in the name of national security; the guy who convinced him to repeatedly defend DADT in court, even though nothing legally required him to, using the same homohating excuses used to pass it in the first place; and the guy who convinced him to let him spend roughly $5 million in the middle of economic disaster on a phony study. [Accusations that Gates altered the results of studies when he was in the CIA to suit the plans of the Reagan White House do NOT bode well for the "objectivity" of this one.]

    And, why stop with the ban? How about Gates’s, in his CIA roles, connection to Iran-Contra, totally misreporting on the declining strength of the Soviet Union, and failing to quickly regroup after its disintegration? Or being one of those who led to our having abandoned Afghanistan after the Russians pulled out, thus leaving a vacuum for the Taliban which we’d trained and armed to fill which led to our going back there and the deaths of over 1000 Americans in our longest “war” in history?

    The guy is SWELL!

  • pender

    Obama is emphatically the problem here, not Gates, Emmanuel, Axelrod or Gibbs. If his advisers are bad, it’s incumbent on him to ignore their advice and get new advisers.

    I’m fairly certain that Obama wants to save DADT repeal for 2012 when the reelection campaign is underway, because it will be a popular move and a convenient wedge against the GOP. Congress wanted to do it now to help them with the midterm election, so as a delaying tactic, Obama proposed this ludicrous survey.

    He’s lost my vote and my donations unless he changes his tune and supports full equality under the law. Life is too short, and self-respect too precious, to support avowed opponents of equality.

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