Obama’s Clintonian Compromise on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t’ Tell’

Let’s face it: the Commander-in-Chief and Congress are secretly afraid of the old men in the military. And the old men in the military, so accustomed to automatic deference by all branches of the US government, are afraid of losing their power as times and the culture change. They cannot fathom that younger soldiers and leaders, the ones the old men are sending to fight two wars, are no longer afraid of dropping their soap bar in the shower.

How else explain the compromise the Obama Administration, the Pentagon and Congress are expected to announce at Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing?

The military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was a so-called “compromise” cooked up 17 years ago after Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn and Republican Sen. John Warner decided to teach the upstart new President Bill Clinton – who escaped military service during the Vietnam War – exactly how Washington worked. In an unprecedented publicity stunt that ignored eons of the military’s top-down structure, Nunn (angry at not being named Secretary of Defense) and Warner went into the bowels of a submarine and asked for the opinions of sailors whose training drilled into them that their opinions do not matter, they must only follow orders.

Here’s how that first hearing went, as reported by NBC’s Lisa Meyers (hat tip to the site devoted to Leonard Matlovich):

Though Clinton had steadfastly agreed to lift the ban on gays serving openly in the military during his campaign – he caved to Nunn, Warner and the military as it became clear that he would get none of his legislative agenda passed otherwise.

In his 2004 book “My Life” (pages 483-486), Clinton blames Republican leader Bob Dole, as well as nervous Democrats facing mid-term elections. He wrote:

“The Joint Chiefs’ early request for a meeting created a problem. I was more than willing to hear them out, but I didn’t want the issue to get any more publicity than it already was receiving, not because I was trying to hide my position, but because I didn’t want the public to think I was paying more attention to it than to the economy. That’s exactly what the congressional Republicans wanted the American people to think. Senator Dole was already talking about passing a resolution removing my authority to lift the ban; he clearly want this to be the defining issue of my first few weeks in office.”

Photo courtesy American Veterans for Equal Rights

After meeting with gays before the 1993 March on Washington – during which uniformed servicemenbers proudly came out on stage in anticipation of the ban being lifted, Clinton   announced the “compromise” on July 19, 1993. Clinton wrote:

“’Don’t ask, don’t tell’ basically said that if you say you’re gay, it’s presumed that you intend to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice [sodomy is illegal] and you can be removed, unless you can convince your commander you’re celibate and therefore not in violation of the code. But if you don’t say you’re gay…”

you can march in a gay pride parade in civilian clothes, hang out in gay bars and with gay friends, be on gay mailing lists, Clinton wrote. You can also live with a partner

“who is the beneficiary of your life insurance. On paper, the military had moved a long way, to ‘live and let live,’ while holding on to the idea that it couldn’t acknowledge gays without approving homosexuality and compromising morale and cohesion. In practice it often didn’t work out that way. Many anti-gay officers simply ignored the new policy and worked harder to root out homosexuals, costing the military millions of dollars that would have been far better spent making America more secure.”

Here’s a question: if the president – the Commander-in-Chief – and Congress, the military’s civilian bosses, all knew the military was willfully and wantonly violating a new policy and the subsequent law – shouldn’t that create more concern than gays saying they’re gay. The whole point of having civilian oversight is so that an unregulated military does not become so strong unto itself that a coup is possible.

So 17 years later, it looks like history is repeating itself.  As a candidate, Obama promised to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” because, he said in the State of the Union, it’s the “right thing to do.” But like Clinton, Obama is faced with a healthcare debate, a struggling economy, and Republicans who want to see him fail. And, like Clinton, he is faced with weak-kneed Democrats afraid they will face a tough fight in the mid-term elections.

According to the New York Times, ”Obama and top Pentagon officials “met repeatedly over the past year about repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the law that bans openly gay members of the military.”

Apparently the president – who told the Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that the law was “just wrong”– was concerned that failure to repeal the policy would mean that Obama and onetime civil rights hero Eric Holder’s Justice Department would eventually have to defend the antigay policy in the US Supreme Court.  One case that could reach SCOTUS was brought by the gay Log Cabin Republicans, which filed their lawsuit after SCOTUS outlawed sodomy in the Lawrence decision.  Now that be awkward – defending DADT against gay Republicans pushing to overturn the law as unconstitutional.

As to the old guard fearing the more culturally astute up and comers – according to The Times,

“a 2008 census by The Military Times of predominantly Republican and largely older subscribers found that 58 percent opposed to efforts to repeal the policy; in 2006, a poll by Zogby International of 545 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that three-quarters were comfortable around gay service members.”

Maybe an LGBT organization should pull a Sam Nunn and ask the soldiers what they think: do they want 18-year decorated fighter pilot Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, sir, who is still serving while awaiting discharge under DADT to remain on duty? . How about Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate, Arabic linguist and infantry officer in Iraq who is facing discharge since announcing he was gay on the Rachael Maddow show last March? Or do they prefer the military’s lowered standards – recruiting felons and those without high school degrees?

How many of those 13,000 discharged since 1993 would have died for their country? How many might have thought of a way out of the military morass we seem to be stuck in, again?

So what will Gates announce at the hearing? The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network expects him to announce that discharges are down significantly last year? Hopefully, he’ll explain why – and if they are only put on hold, with discharges coming after there is no longer such a great need for for able bodies. Gates is also expected to  announce an “interim” action wherein no action will be taken to discharge servicemembers who are outed by “third parties” or jilted partners.

What exactly does that mean? Does that include women who are called “lesbian” and “investigated” because of widespread rumors initiated by a man with whom the woman refused to have sex? Would that then lower the rates of sexual harassment? Will the complaint still go in the servicemember’s file, perhaps to be pursued at a later time?

Right now, religious and mental health professionals are required to report if a lesbian or gay servicement discloses their sexual orientation in a private session. Do they count as third parties? Will gay servicemembers be able to access the same kind of care that their straight comrades-in-arms have – or will they continue to have to suffer in silence, adding to the burden of the serving their country?

Will these new restrictions be enforced uniformly or will officers be allowed discretion to do what they want – as has apparently been happening since 1993?

According to the Times, Gates told Obama that it was no longer a question of if the ban would be repealed, but when. So if Obama – the constitutional scholar who campaigned on an oft-repeated promise to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” – and the secretary of defense who is sworn to keep the country secure – know the policy is wrong, costly, ineffective and will change eventually – by what measure do they allow this continuing discrimination against a select group of people?

Could it be that tackling the issue is too hard in the face of the mid-term elections when Obama and Gates want more “important” concessions from Congress?

GOP House leader John Boehner of Ohio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press on Sunday:”

“In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat, why would we want to get into this debate?”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand appears to be using her position to distinguish her from her primary challenger, antigay Henry Ford in their upstate New York race. She told the Times she met with Lt. Dan Choi.

“This policy asked him to lie every day, and it was antithetical to everything he had learned in the military,” said Gillibrand, who tried but failed to introduce legislation for an 18-month moratorium on discharges.

So instead of actual legislation to repeal DADT, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin – who Clinton said was in those early meetings with Sam Nunn – is holding a hearing.  Small progress.

But what will that hearing do? Will it be an hour where Gates simply announces the “stricter” evidentiary rule for discharges? Or will discharged personnel be able to testify how DADT ruined their lives when all they wanted to do was to serve this country? Will evidence be admitted from the Joint Force Quarterly which called “don’t ask, don’t tell” a failure and said openly gay servicecmembers do not undercut unit cohesion? Will the Rand Coroporation report – requested by Clinton and Congress in 1993 – be admitted? That report concluded that sexual orientation has nothing to do with military service.

During his State of the Union address, Obama talked about providing greater support for veterans and made note of how First Lady Michelle Obama and the Vice President’s wife, Jill Biden, have taken on a special mission to help military families. Monday, Obama followed through on those promises in his new budget.

But will the Armed Services hearing include evidence about how gay and lesbian veterans are left to fend for themselves – and how the families of the estimated 65,000 gay servicemembers currently serving under DADT are not receiving any support and are not allowed to talk about their loved one for fear that such information could lead to a witchhunt and discharge – in a time of war!  Will the hearing include testimony about how any new policy or repeal legislation should include retroactive funding to support vets and LGBT families?

The Palm Center, which specializes in DADT, notes in a press release the stricter rules regarding third-party allegations and “a new standard for what constitutes reliable sources and credible information that trigger a “don’t ask, don’t tell” investigation.” They also think Gates and Mullin will announce that now a senior officer has to “sign off on any discharge for it to move forward.”

Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Palm Center, calls it the “Obama Rule” and seems pleased with the progress.

“This ‘Obama Rule’ could provide a new standard for ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ investigations. Depending on how it’s implemented, the executive action taken by the President could be seismic. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ has rested on the belief that the presence of openly gay service members is always bad for the military. The new Obama Rule would mean a shift in the military’s focus toward keeping gay troops, reflecting the military’s belief that they are as essential as their heterosexual peers.”

Belkin adds this caveat:

“If new discretion is being granted to two-stars, then the actual impact of the Obama rule will hinge on whether the President, the Defense Secretary, and the Service Chiefs send a clear signal that discharges are to be minimized.”

Dr. Nathaniel Frank, Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center and author of “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America,” also wants the implementation process to be quick.

“The evidence is overwhelming that a quick turnaround on policy change minimizes disruptions to unit cohesion and morale. If this is the goal, there should be no slow-rolling of the implementation process.

[snip]

I’m encouraged by the apparent movement on this issue by the President and the military. I’m also hoping they’ve reviewed the research on implementation and will create a plan that reflects the President’s commitment to ending this policy in 2010.”

That research, Franks notes, includes not only the Rand report but

“a 1993 General Accounting Office (GAO) report on the “Policies and Practices of Foreign Militaries” that concluded that the smooth transition in other military forces that allow gays to serve openly was attributed “to the military leadership’s support of the new policy and the military’s ability to keep a low profile on the issue.””

Strong leadership seems to be key here. I would remind Obama and Gates and Sen. Levin of  LAPD Chief Charlie Beck’s advice to Obama, commander-in-chief to commander-in-chief:

“This is my advice to him: Do the right thing. He knows what the right thing is. But he has to have the strength of leadership to go beyond – just as this organization – the LAPD of my father – has gone beyond itself and reversed itself on so many pieces because they’re not the right thing to do. His path is simple. He just has to follow it and his military leaders have to do what he says.

I would tell him to be absolute and resolute. I have a great leadership team…but in some areas …the LAPD has had to re-think its position because we weren’t doing the right thing.”

Will such advice be offered at the hearing? I don’t know. Maybe Obama, Gates and Levin think fighting gangs all day is different from fighting Afghan snipers. Or maybe they think the LAPD doesn’t use soap when they shower.

One thing’s for certain: the LAPD is no longer compromising on what’s “right.” Nor is the LAPD afraid of gays. In fact, the respected para-military organization is recruiting them. Will we hear about that at the hearing?

Hopefully, Levin will call his old colleague Sam Nunn – who recently said we need to “re-think”  “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

What more does Obama need to inspire him to lead?

Tagged as: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Carl Levin, Don't ask, don't tell, gays in the military, Sam Nunn