View From Washington The DADT Shuffle

This week marked a first of sorts.

Brian Bond, the gay man who is deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration, went on the record with an LGBT blogger -- just one week after he also offered up a written Q&A to Q-Notes, a North Carolina-based LGBT outlet.

Pam Spaulding of PamsHouseBlend was the blogger who managed to snag Bond outside of the entirely controlled confines of a written interview. Not sure why all the love for the Tar Heel State -- where Spaulding is also based -- but it's most notable because Bond has proven to be an almost invisible presence given his position in the Office of Public Engagement.

His sudden emergence leaves one wondering if administration officials sense they have a PR problem on their hands with LGBT Americans. Bond is not the highest-ranking gay official to go on record to date -- John Berry, the director of Office of Personnel Management, has granted several interviews. But knowing what I do about how press-shy Bond is, I would be inclined to think he has been pushed into the spotlight by forces greater than himself.

What's worth noting here is that none of Obama's inner circle has agreed to an interview with the LGBT press yet, let alone the commander in chief himself -- who has granted a series of interviews to other constituencies' news outlets.

During the interview Bond seemed acutely aware of the administration's deficit there.

"I should be doing a better job of communicating some of the issues and how we're tackling certain issues out there, and I will certainly work on that," he told Spaulding.

One area where the visibility of LGBT issues did improve markedly this week was on "don't ask, don't tell," which took a central role in the confirmation hearing of Clifford Stanley as undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

If confirmed, Stanley would oversee the policy within the Pentagon. I have been to several hearings where Defense secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs chair Adm. Mike Mullen have testified, and the military's gay ban has only come up once if my accounting is correct. All of those hearings took place prior to President Obama's pledge to end the ban.

The fact that every Democratic senator but one asked a DADT-related question of Stanley Thursday suggests that they are setting the stage for repeal. If they were not girding for that battle, the majority of them would likely have avoided the subject entirely.

Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado even noted at one point, "Some in Congress believe that the president is prepared to include repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' among his policy recommendations to Congress in the Defense budget that he submits to us early next year."

Stanley, for his part, was less than revealing in his answers, mostly sticking to pledges to tackle the issue fairly and objectively and seek input from others, especially the service chiefs and military commanders.

Whispers on Capitol Hill suggest that Stanley is open to ending the ban, but I have not seen any hard evidence of that as yet.

What is clear is how integral Stanley's input will be to the fate of the gay ban one way or the other. I spoke recently with former congresswoman Pat Schroeder, who helped lead the 1993 effort to allow women to serve in combat positions on fighter jets. She recalled how influential the Bureau of Personnel (BUPERS) was to policy decisions made in the Navy at the time.

"The Joint Chiefs are going to listen to BUPERS because at the end of the day, they're military guys and they're going to do what they're told to do," Schroeder said. "If the Bureau of Personnel were saying, 'Forget all this other stuff, we need these people, it's time we move on,' I think the Joint Chiefs would listen to that."

Stanley's stature as a former two-star general in the Marines is also important since many believe the Marines may present the most resistance to repeal of all the armed services.

The Washington Times reported earlier this month that Gen. James Conway, head of the Marines, opposes overturning the policy.

But DADT news was also a mixed bag by week's end, when word came Friday that hearings would be put off until 2010, though Sen. Carl Levin said that would not necessarily delay consideration of the policy next year.

Another setback for the legislative agenda was the postponement of a committee vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. While the delay appears to be a function of wrangling over hypertechnical legal language rather than substantive changes to the bill, the House ENDA vote could still move into next year, possibly as late as February, according to Rep. Barney Frank.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin this week acknowledged that no delay is a good delay.

"I think there's an absolute advantage of having it happen this year or as early as possible next year," she said of a full House vote on ENDA.

Frank was optimistic that the House could pass ENDA even if Republicans targeted a specific portion of the bill such as transgender inclusion with a motion to recommit, which would require a simple majority vote to send the legislation back to committee.

"There are nine Republicans committed to being with us on a trans-inclusive ENDA," Frank said. "That ain't a hell of lot out of 77, but it means we could then lose 50 Democrats and still be OK."

Frank was more focused on the Senate than the House for both employment nondiscrimination and "don't ask, don't tell."

"At this point," he said, "the 60 votes in the Senate both on trans-inclusive ENDA and for DADT -- that seems to be the biggest obstacle."