Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Time for Cautious Judgment
Chuck Donovan /
As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates promised last February, the Pentagon’s working group on Congress’s military eligibility law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” has issued a report advocating for and detailing implementation steps of the law’s repeal. After several weeks of media spin occasioned by a WikiLeaks-style drip of select findings from the report, and within minutes of the Pentagon’s release, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) re-embraced his position favoring repeal and pushed for rapid action in the lame duck session now underway.
The armed forces deserve more than a Harry Reid rush to judgment. The report itself is nearly 300 pages in length, and the Pentagon’s implementation plan is an additional 95 pages. That alone underscores the need for cautious judgment at a measured pace. (more…)