Back during the campaign, a NYTimes Magazine story asked some of Obama's law students in Chicago about their experience. One commenter noted that the future president kept reminding students how the law affects us.

“He wanted his students to consider the impact laws and judicial opinions had on real people.”

DADT is a prime example of a policy's effect on real people.

The link

But I thought his invitation of Warren was proof that it was . . . . well you know the drill. Obama is still who I thought he was and frankly who he told us he was.

The jury is out. Was it always the Obama plan to offer cold comfort to the religionist crackpots and then perform real reform on behalf of gays, or was it that after making kissy-face offerings to the religionist crackpots, the enraged response of the gay community made Obama offer tangible reforms? In either case, you can expect the gay community to keep the pressure on the Democrats to keep their pact with this part of e base.

Having served in US Army units where not openly gays served their country well, have disliked DADT for it's hypocrisy. However, I thought DADT was often used by Chicken Hawks, when asked if they had ever served in the military.

Michelle Goldberg suggested it might even "make up for Rick Warren,"

Might even? MIGHT EVEN?

When you meet a person who's not certain that axing the harmful, idiotic and grossly unfair unholy bastard grandchild of The Comb Test more than outweighs the imaginary harm of some douchenozzle speaking for a few minutes, you've met a person who has a lot more in common with the douchenozzle than anyone you want on your side.

Why do I get the feeling that, for some, Obama will spend his entire time in office almost making it up to the gay community for Warren's ninety seconds? Obama could sign an Executive Order authorizing transsexuals to wear dresses in ranks and it would still "almost" make it up.

This sounds good. However, I've spent most of my life hearing things from politicians that sound good, only to see nothing happen in the end.

I'll take back everything I've said about Obama's selection of Warren if I see some positive changes in American law. But words from Gibbs aren't enough -- I was born in Missouri, and Obama has to show me he's sincere about ending discrimination.

This is really great news for all the gays who - along with everyone else - have lost their jobs, their savings, and their healthcare.

"The Answer WAS Orange"@9.01a - I "got" the second part of your example, but I didn't "get" who/what you were referring to in the first.

Who is "The Comb Test"?

TIA

phoebes - The Comb Test was a way of defining people of multiracial background. If the comb went through the hair easily, you were "white". I'm afraid that oversimplifies it, but it's close.

Sorry, the comb test was one way the U.S. military divided African-Americans during WWII*:

1. Thoroughly wet a recruit's hair.
2. Allow to dry naturally.

If he could easily pass a comb through his hair, he wasn't "too black" and could become (for example) a Tuskegee Airman.

*Maybe WWI as well, a former TA told me about it.

Rick Warren is a slap in the face and has great propaganda value for all involved - gay outrage and wingnut jubilation - but Obama will have to deliver on his rhetoric of respect, inclusion and non discrimination at some point.

He has nothing to lose from the right by deep-sixing DADT since nothing he does short of having all homosexuals executed will please them enough, but he does have much to lose from progressives and the left if he becomes another Bill Clinton - all talk and then betrayal.

I don't understand the selection of Warren, and am greatly offended by it, however, as long as Warren doesn't insert his hateful and bigoted ideology into whatever he says on Jan. 20, I'll survive. As far as I'm concerned no cleric should be given such a platform at the inauguration, so it's really only a question of how bad the choice is. On the scale of unacceptability Warren rates about a seven out of ten (with ten being the ghost of Jerry Farwell).

"[I]f this pattern holds -- symbolic sops to the right, followed by real-world gains for gays and lesbians -- it will be a huge improvement over Bill Clinton, who did almost exactly the opposite."

Sweet heaven!
THANK YOU! Until now I thought I was the only one who knew this.

For all the talk of how great Clinton was, DADT was concrete evidence that the man was undeniably flawed. Defense of Marriage Act... Health Insurance Company subsidization Act (Hilarycare)...

Why does so much of the Democratic establishment get nostalgic for that guy?

I'll believe President-Elect Separate-But-Equal actually means it when I see it signed into law and all the requisite service instructions and regulations changed to meet it. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.

Goldberg's gratuitous swipe at Clinton is unwarranted.

In 1992 the law had been an outright ban on gays in the military, supported by generals who insisted it was necessary for "unit morale" plus a coalition of Senate Republicans and spineless, frightened Democratic Senators who didn't want to be on record with a vote on the issue. When Clinton announced DADT it caused a firestorm on Capitol Hill and Clinton got very little support from Democratic Senators, many of whom were willing to let him take all the heat and some who were mad at him for even addressing the issue. Orrin Hatch announced that he had done a head count and had the votes to reimplement an outright ban by statute with a veto-proof majority, and he would have done so but for Colin Powell announcing his support for DADT, and Hatch realized he lost the margin to do it.

Bill Clinton was way, WAY ahead of public opinion at the time and got nothing but grief for it from the left and the right. It gained him not one bit of political capital at the time with Congress. He knew, however, that after DADT was in place for a while, it would undercut the entire rationale for discriminatng against gays in the military in the first place, by showing that the world did not come to an end by letting gay people serve. If Clinton had issued an executive order barring discrimiation outright, it would have been overturned by an overwhelming margin in Congress and discrimination would have been enshrined in statute.

Just for an analogy showing the shift in public attitude, consider that California passed Prop 8 in 2008 by 52-48. In 2000 a similar statutory initiative limiting marriage to heterosexual couples passed 61-39. A Field Poll study going back through prior polls back to 1977 has shown a continual trend in favor of equal rights. But as late as 1987 the California poll showed opposition to gay marriage at 62-30, and historically the undecideds have usually been "no" votes on this.

http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2268.pdf

It's easy to sit here in 2009 and say Clinton should have done more in 1993, but Clinton was operating in a very different environment on eequal rights issues than exists today. What he di was a significant advance at the time and set the stage for further advances now.

Let's see now. A service member, who is fully capable of serving next to a closeted gay service member, gets the heebie jeebies if (s)he knows that same fellow-service member to be gay, and the wingnuts want the military leadership to pander to that kind of squeamishness.

Doesn't the public have a right to expect more, uh, courage from our military personnel?