Furibundum

"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 t...

Like most other gay folks, I was gratified the other night to hear President Obama announce at the State of the Union address his intention to put repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell on the agenda for 2010. Of course we were all hyped when we heard it the first time, too. Back when he was pandering the rainbow coalition for votes during his campaign, pledging to be a "fierce advocate" for LGBT rights. To start working toward getting rid of DADT during his first year as president was part of that promise. Not that he has totally snubbed us, I guess, but tagging him a "fierce advocate" is probably a stretch . It's really little wonder that much of the queer community reacted approvingly, but also with a fair amount of skepticism, the other night after hearing him vow again to do what he vowed once before with nothing gotten done so far. This DADT thing, I wouldn't think, should be such a big ordeal to get over and done with in short order. Even military p...