View From Washington

The LGBT movement turned a corner this week with the help of President Barack Obama and Defense secretary Robert Gates. And whether they were eager or reluctant partners is irrelevant for the moment.

President Obama Thursday evening released his contribution to LGBT activist Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project, video messages intended to lend hope and perspective to queer youths who may feel alienated, disheartened, or even desperate.

"You are not alone. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything to deserve being bullied," the president told young people. "There are people out there who love you and care about you just the way you are."

His message, along with that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who offered her own words of encouragement earlier this week, is a sign that our nation's foremost political leaders finally understand that queer youths are anguished, that this movement is not simply a sterile call for rights or an intellectual drill in our country's constitutional mores, but rather the deeply emotional cry of a people yearning to be recognized for their full humanity. Unfortunately, our youths, with fewer resources at their disposal, have shouldered the lion's share of the burden of making that painfully obvious to our political leaders.

President Obama has delivered impassioned speeches on the stump of late, complete with nostalgic references to the movements of yesterday.

Progress takes time, he told an audience in Madison, Wis., last month.

"You know, the slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, they weren't sure when slavery would end, but they understood it was going to end. When women were out there marching for the right to vote, they weren't sure when it was going to happen, but they kept on going," he said. "I am telling you, Wisconsin, we are bringing about change and progress is going to come -- but you've got to stick with me. You can't lose heart."

But until this week the president seemed mostly oblivious to the present-day equality movement staring him in the face -- unaware that he and his administration are standing as an impediment to freedom's progress through their inaction on so many fronts.

However, his video was a signal that some realization seems to have crept in based on the shocking and inescapable spate of queer tragedies -- including heart-wrenching suicides and horrific acts of violence -- that preceded a blistering couple of weeks for the administration. Valerie Jarrett delivered a speech at a Human Rights Campaign event about bullying that landed with a thud after Dan Savage excoriated the White House for co-opting his words without effecting real political change. Then Jarrett fumbled a softball interview by intimating that one suicide victim had made a "lifestyle choice." President Obama himself faced protests in Miami and Boston from LGBT and HIV/AIDS activists. A federal judge's injunction on "don't ask, dont' tell" dominated front-page headlines and forced the Pentagon to administer new orders stating it would "abide" by the suspension on discharges.

It's exactly the kind of news explosion the White House desperately hoped to avoid in the run-up to the midterms. But there it was. And at the end of last week, President Obama took three LGBT-related questions during a youth town hall, one of them in particular putting him face-to-face with the palpable discontent simmering among millennials around the intransigence and stolidity of Washington.

"I voted for you in the last elections based on your alleged commitment to equality for all Americans, gay and straight, and I wanted to know where you stood on 'don't ask, don't tell,'" said the questioner with a forthrightness the commander in chief rarely weathers in public.

If the White House had previously been in denial about its ability to brush gay issues under the rug until after the dust settled from the midterms, the past two weeks provided a splash of icy cold water.

But the wake-up call may or may not have come in time for the White House to regain control of the runaway train that is "don't ask, don't tell."

Dismantling "don't ask, don't tell" is quickly becoming the same abject lesson in bungling a change of military regulations that the policy's inception was.

While the circumstances surrounding desegregating the military in 1948 were different, one thing President Harry Truman got right was that he provided unyielding, unequivocal leadership. Dissenters were shown the door.

That model held true in study after study of countries that now allow gays to serve openly such as Canada, Germany, Israel, and Sweden. As one of the foremost scholars on the topic, Nathaniel Frank, wrote earlier this year, according to a 500-page report compiled by the RAND Corp. in 1993, "two of the most important factors in a personnel policy transition like the repeal of DADT are decisive leadership and a single code of conduct for all personnel. But RAND also found that a successful new policy must be 'decided upon and implemented as quickly as possible' to avoid anxiety and uncertainty."

The mind-boggling mayhem of the last few weeks has been the direct result of a failure on all three counts.

When President Truman gave his marching orders in 1948, he set the military on course to lead the country by example, to help set the pace for national change well ahead of major advances like Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 2010 the military is languishing woefully behind the times. But although the Pentagon -- the most powerful lobby in Washington -- can apparently bully the White House and Congress, it cannot bully the courts and the American people, who overwhelmingly believe anyone who is willing to give her or his life for freedom ought to be allowed to do so with unqualified honor and dignity.

So where the politicians have failed, the courts are now picking up the slack. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has been forced to dole out a number of convoluted answers about DADT over the past several weeks, but he has been crystal clear about the following: "The courts have demonstrated that the time is ticking on the policy of 'don't ask, don't tell.'"

In fact, Gibbs articulated some version of that several times almost as if he might be sending a message to the Pentagon: Just FYI, you guys can stymie the legislation, but get ready because change is clearly marching your way.

At a Pentagon press backgrounder Thursday, one senior DOD official speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity reiterated the military leadership's preference for legislative repeal. I asked him whether they were gaming out the very real prospect that legislation would fail and their hand would be forced by the judiciary.

"We are planning for multiple scenarios," he said with a certain smugness.

Whatever they are planning for now, it appears doubtful they spent much time seriously prepping for the headache that Judge Virginia Phillips visited upon them last week. In fact, it took them two days to circulate new orders regarding the injunction and yet another day to redirect recruiters.

Given the situation's volatility, last Thursday, Secretary Gates designated just three people -- the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force -- to have the authority to finalize discharges. The memo from Gates was nothing short of an acknowledgment that even DOD had finally lost control of the fate of this misbegotten policy.

And yes, it could portend the beginning of the end. Civilians -- political appointees at that -- are now in total control of discharges, and each one of those separations will be highly scrutinized. The process certainly isn't pretty, but the Pentagon is slowly bending toward the justice being meted out by our judicial branch.