This post was submitted by corey

That’s not a chicken with its head cut off you’ve seen running around the Hill over the past few weeks. It’s the news media, who, post-Electiongeddon, don’t really seem to know what to do with themselves.

On Friday, there were several pieces out on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which all seemed to say very little in several different, equally unhelpful ways. In the conservative, worth-its-weight-in-kindle Washington Times, there was a piece suggesting that Obama was ready to break his campaign promise to repeal DADT, or at least postpone the measure for a while. Meanwhile, in the liberal online publication, Huffington Post, there was an article on how great it was that Obama would soon be getting rid of this horrible stain on our nation’s civil rights record.

I’ve written about DADT before, because even though I don’t give a fuck about being able to serve in the military, some people do and should have the right to do as they please. At first glance there were obviously contradictions between these two pieces, but it didn’t take too long to see what was really going on here.

When you read between the lines, both pieces are basically saying the same thing: that Obama will try to get rid of DADT, but he won’t repeat the mistakes that Clinton made in 1993 that caused DADT to be created to begin with. Basically, Clinton announced his intention to end discrimination against gays in the armed forces, Congress and the military balked, and Clinton had little choice but to accept DADT as a compromise between having gays barred and allowing them to serve openly.

Obama wants to build a consensus and work with the people in the army, particularly the Joint Chiefs, as well as the Congressional leaders whose support he will eventually need. Doing so may be easier for him than it was for Bill Clinton for two reasons: we are currently fighting two major wars, and there is a big need for every available person to serve; and the American people now favor allowing gays to serve openly by about 75% according to Huffington, and 79% according to a 2005 survey from the Boston Globe – way up from the 45% who did when Clinton made his attempt.

The President-elect has shown in both his campaign and transition that he intends to be a pragmatist in office, not an idealist. He picked Joe Biden as his running mate, a practical move that he knew would help him if he won office; he refused to make grand gestures during the economic negotiations and instead played things calmly and practically; he showed a willingness to compromise on allowing off-shore drilling if it meant getting an energy package out of Congress, despite his earlier objections; and he has shown a great interest in appointing people to his White House who he thinks will get the job done, even if they were rivals (Clinton for Secretary of State), Republicans (Secretary of Defense Gates likely staying on), or otherwise don’t really represent “change” or stand as far to the left as he does.

The real question is, how do you balance this? “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” actively discriminates against members of our armed services and makes America less prepared for the military ventures it has taken on. We obviously don’t want to see any rash steps taken that could lead to a backfire. However, there comes a point with any political situation when you have to either decide a cause isn’t worth it or else put on your grown-up pants and actually take a stand, even if it’s risky.

I hope that when Obama inevitably faces choices like that on civil rights and equality issues that he will take the principled stance. At the end of the day, this is an ideological problem. People want gays out of the military because they don’t think we’re equal to them, they don’t think we can be trusted or deserve rights, and they find it disgusting that we would be around honorable, hetero heroes. There is no real pragmatic argument against gays serving, since it’s been done in other countries (including 23 of 26 NATO nations) and is working out pretty okay. Obama needs to find a careful balance of pragmatism and idealism here, or else he will never actually change the status quo – and, worse, will further demoralize the gay Americans who helped put him into office and who have suffered enough setbacks recently. (You really thought that link was about Prop 8, didn’t you?)

Meanwhile, be weary about what you read in the news… These two stories about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” tell us very little themselves, and there’s been more hot air than usual blowing around the news outlets as we wait in presidential limbo. Case in point: I just took 9 paragraphs to tell you that there really wasn’t much of a story. And I don’t even have the motivation of a paycheck.

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