View From Washington Whither Repeal

The White House let us know last week where it stands on pushing to pass a full repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" this year -- which is nowhere.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated that "the president is strongly in support" of repeal and added that there's "a process that's under way," but he dutifully avoided saying whether President Obama had any sense of urgency about passing repeal this year.

When it was suggested that if repeal doesn't pass this year, many advocates believe it won't pass at all during this presidential term, Gibbs said he didn't think "the president shares that view."

Despite White House ambiguity, two senators nudged the ball forward this past week on Capitol Hill, though it's not clear they're headed for the same goal.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announced that he's preparing to introduce the first repeal bill the Senate has seen to date (the Military Readiness Enhancement Act has been kicking around the House since 2005). The details of Lieberman's bill are still in question, but several sources have said it lacks a GOP cosponsor at this point.

In the meantime, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan has been actively promoting the idea of passing legislation that would impose a moratorium on discharges under the policy -- a concept that doesn't interest LGBT advocacy groups. The thinking goes that if full repeal isn't locked in this year, the policy will be kept in place for the foreseeable future since Democrats may well lose control of one or both chambers in the 2010 election.

Whether Levin's calculus on this changes any time soon remains to be seen. Based on his comments to reporters in the past week, he seems to be weighing a suspension of discharges against passing some version of the House bill, which would bring about full and immediate repeal, leaving just 90 days for the Pentagon to issue new guidelines on the policy. Lieberman's legislation, however, might allot more time than the House bill for the Pentagon to complete its review and implementation process.

Levin poses a double-edged sword for repeal advocates at the moment. On the one hand, he has most certainly taken on the issue in spite of the administration's equivocation -- or, as one insider put it, "he's got religion on this."

However, he also holds enormous power as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and if he concludes that a moratorium is the most he can get through his committee, then that's likely what he'll include in the defense authorization bill he presents to the committee. And whatever passes through committee -- be it a moratorium or full repeal -- stands the best chance of being signed into law.

The other perhaps little-noticed news item worth revisiting this week was a short Politico report that the Obama administration is putting the finishing touches on a new 2010 election strategy that "replaces sweeping 'change' with incremental reform."

From the article: "The strategy involves heavy use of presidential statements and Obama's White House platform to position him as an agent of popular change, with less reliance on a complicated legislative agenda. It represents a downsizing from the heady days just a year ago when he hoped to rack up legislative achievements of a scope not seen since the Great Society triumphs of President Lyndon Johnson."

And here, I believe, lies one of the White House's main hesitations in pushing to close the deal on repealing "don't ask, don't tell." This administration has few legislative wins it can tout heading into the midterms. Sure, there's TARP and the stimulus -- both major achievements, but neither is particularly popular or sellable at the moment.

So as the White House staged a five-hour bipartisan health summit Thursday, nothing was more apparent than the fact the president's premier piece of legislation -- that which was intended to be the centerpiece of his presidency -- has come down to a last-minute Hail Mary pass by the Democrats. Outcome: unknown, tenuous at best.

So what if November rolled around, health care took a dive, and "don't ask, don't tell" had been repealed? That prospect -- the idea that pro-equality legislation might be one of a very narrow slice of legislative wins -- is likely giving Obama strategists indigestion.

The flaw of that logic, however, is that ending the gay ban could have any bearing whatsoever on how the public perceives the administration's effectiveness, or lack thereof. Let's face it, if health reform flops and unemployment persists at current levels -- there's just no putting lipstick on that pig.

However, if Democrats manage to ram through some health reforms, and more people go back to work and start to feel a greater sense of job security, then ending "don't ask, don't tell" would just be one more accomplishment that, quite frankly, Americans now view as a national security issue even if White House strategists still pigeonhole it as social issue politics.