Although it appears that the DOJ is going to appeal the Judge's rule on the repeal of DADT, all is NOT lost folks. According to Gibbs, Obama is working with the Pentagon to repeal DADT regardless of what the Congress does.
http://thehill.com/...
We were all hoping that the DOJ wouldn't appeal the case of the DADT repeal but it looks like it may happen as soon as tomorrow.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...
The Obama administration is expected to appeal as soon as Wednesday a federal judge's ruling that halted the Defense Department from enforcing its policy that bars openly gay people from military service, according to senior administration officials familiar with the government's plans.
U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Philips issued an injunction Tuesday that bans enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy throughout the military services.
While the government has up to 60 days to file an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco, California, officials familiar with the case said that could happen in the next day or two.
Although completely devastating it is not unexpected. This would have been the easy way of getting rid of this law once and for all.
However, the Pentagon is fighting to prevent this law from all of a sudden getting done away with. They want to do it in more of an "orderly" process.
http://online.wsj.com/...
Mr. Gates said extensive training and regulatory changes were needed to ensure that the so-called don't ask, don't tell policy is repealed in an orderly way to minimize the impact on U.S. forces...
...Mr. Gates has voiced support for repealing "don't ask, don't tell" but wants any legislative changes to take effect after the Pentagon completes its own review later this year.
"We have a lot of revision of regulations that has to be done, in addition to the training," Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said the Pentagon review, which includes surveys of service members and their spouses, should not be rushed.
"One of the results of the review will be what kind of other changes we need to make... .This is a very complex business. It has enormous consequences for our troops," Mr. Gates said.
I don't see how it is so complex but for what ever reason Gates feels that it is.
There are two more options of getting rid of this law once and for all. First is for the Senate to pass the Defense bill during the lame duck session. There ARE moderate Republican Senators who may be open to passing this bill after the Pentagon releases its study on repeal on December 1st. Thus there is still a possibility that the Senate can get 60 votes to pass the Defense bill.
Another possibility was brought up by Gibbs while he was speaking to the press today.
http://thehill.com/...
Gibbs said the pressure is on the Senate to change the law, but the president is still working with the Pentagon, which should conclude its review on ending the policy in December, to change the law if Congress won’t.
"The best way to end it is for the Senate to follow the lead of the House of Representatives," Gibbs said. "But absent that, the president has set up a process to end this policy."
I suspect that once the Pentagon has released their study on December 1st that the Senate will bring up the Defense bill up for a vote. If it fails to pass then Obama may finally do an executive order to get rid of DADT and allow the military to implement the repeal as they have set out to do. It will NOT be quick but probably will happen within a few months or so.
Gibbs' comment suggests that Obama is ready to BYPASS THE SENATE once the Pentagon releases its study on repeal. The only other way to do this is to do an executive order ala Truman.
The bottom line that it IS going to happen folks.