Below The Beltway

In the article I wrote about earlier today, the Washington Times characterized the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as an Obama campaign promise.

Well, as KipEsquire pointed out in the comments, it never was a campaign promise.

Consider this from April 10, 2008:

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama says if elected president he won’t require that his appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff support allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

The Democratic presidential front-runner favors repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays, which was instituted during the Clinton administration. He said his priority for the Joint Chiefs will be that they make decisions to strengthen the military and keep the country safe, not their position on the policy.

(…)

“But I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy,” he said. “We’re spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn’t make us more safe.”

(…)

Asked what he could reasonably accomplish for the gay community as president, Obama said he can “reasonably see” repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

Here’s the interview itself:

If you were elected, what do you plan to do for the LGBT community — what can you reasonably get done?

I reasonably can see “don’t ask, don’t tell” eliminated. I think that I can help usher through an Employment Non-Discrimination Act and sign it into law.

(…)

Back to “don’t ask, don’t tell” real quick — you’ve said before you don’t think that’s a heavy lift. Of course, it would be if you had Joint Chiefs who were against repeal. Is that something you’ll look at?

I would never make this a litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Obviously, there are so many issues that a member of the Joint Chiefs has to deal with, and my paramount obligation is to get the best possible people to keep America safe. But I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy — ya know, we’re spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn’t make us more safe, and what I want are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are making decisions based on what strengthens our military and what is going to make us safer, not ideology.

Nowhere in the interview did Obama promise to move forward on the repeal of DADT. He said he thought it was a possible accomplishment and that he would study it with his generals if elected, but he never promised he would make it a priority.