Robert Gates on DADT, Par for the Course

"Cautiously optimistic, again to wait and see" is how I wrapped up my post the other day, referring to whether or not President Obama would step up making good his promise to push repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Later than we had expected from him, maybe, but better overdue than never.

So let the games begin. Kicking it off today, the hearing out of the military's top defense officials about their take on getting rid of it, and what the Pentagon would need to do if and when that happened. I reckon that's a start, but I have a gripe about how things got going and how I expect things will turn out going forward.

Robert Gates said that just laying the groundwork for a repeal of the policy will take most of a year. That's how long is apparently will take to prepare the military, and to get their thoughts and opinions about it before doing anything else. He said he will put together a "high-level working group" to immediately get started on that.

He has also directed them to "quickly review the regulations used to implement" the law as it is now, and within 45 days to start enforcing it more fairly until it can eventually be gotten rid of altogether.

A stopgap measure, meaning that if you haven't been asked, and you haven't told, then you need not worry about your regimented ass being ousted if it so happens that anyone else should open the closet door, someone who might be holding a grudge, say maybe a jilted somebody; you never know.

A year it takes just to get things set in motion; that seems like an awfully long time for a first step. But what do I know about why ostensibly everything takes so long getting done out there? I'll only have to accept Gates' estimation that a year is a reasonable time frame, I suppose.

But shouldn't we already be mid-stride of that first step anyway? Actually, past midway and closing ground, really, since it was last July when he said he was planning then to take action doing the exact same thing, that he said at today's hearing he intends to start doing now.

At least something happened today, I guess. It looks to me, though, that what was already a long row to hoe very likely could be longer than expected. So I end again with the same sign-off as before, staying cautiously optimistic, again to wait and see; with more emphasis on the waiting part than I had at first counted on.