It seems worth mentioning that the LGBT community is the fraction of Obama's constituency that has had the most clearly adversarial relationship with him.

Even before he was in office, he'd outraged us with the Rick Warren pick -- and heard our furious howls of protest reach way beyond our immediate members into other sections of his base.

In the states, our push for marriage is outrunning his stance on civil unions in a quite remarkable fashion. We may be the only popular "movement" that is not having its agenda circumscribed by his political balancing act. (That's a sorry statement about the labor movement, but I think true.)

So we get the word "repeal" back. But do we get the repeal?

The hyperventilating over changes at the WH website is a little tired.

I'd have to agree with Jim. If I'm not mistaken, the word repeal refers to legislative acts, not executive orders. Thus the President is not empowered to "repeal" anything. He could, however, "change" executive policy.

If Secretary Gates has cleared with Obama any public statements he will make on DADT, there is now a big confusion in my mind.
Obama says: "Go"
Gates says: "don't go fast; go slow; maybe don't go at all for the time being".
Who is in command here?

Isn't "change" a better term anyway? Technically speaking, if DADT is repealed (which as pointed out above isn't really the correct term for rescission of an executive order), wouldn't we go back to the former no-gays-at-all policy that existed prior to Clinton's DADT order?

JRD: "Change" implies keeping DADT in place with some minor tweaking. And yes, "repeal" is a legislative term, and DADT will have to be repealed by the Legislature, but the President can certainly throw his weight and support behind something, especially when his party is in control.

As far as going back to the way things were ... As I recall, Clinton wanted to lift the no-gays policy in place at the time, and DADT was the compromise made to appease conservatives at the time: Gays can be in the military, they just can't be open about it. Societal views have changed since then and the feeling is it's time to move past the compromise DADT into the full openness and equality that was the original intent.

That's my $.02, anyway.

If these word changes mean anything, I would suspect they simply reflect the administration's ongoing attempts to get as many of the DOD's higher-ups to support, or at least not actively oppose, the repeal of DADT. The legislative, judicial and polling changes in favor of same-sex marriages are decreasing the possiblility of rational opposition to gays in the military; if gays are mainstream enough to get married (in Iowa, for crying out loud!), there is no intelligent reason to keep them closeted in the military.
Then there are the demographics - the groups most likely to provide recruits for the military are the groups that are the least bothered by someone's sexuality.
That's two strikes...

Hi, good post. I have been thinking about this issue,so thanks for writing. I'll certainly be subscribing to your site.