BREAKING: Senate Begins Process On DADT Repeal

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin has indeed scheduled hearings on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for next Tuesday. Via DC Agenda:

“Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen are set to testify at hearing, which is set for Tuesday.

“We’re going to have our hearing on the budget on Tuesday with Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen, and then after that hearing is over on Tuesday, we’re going to move to a hearing [separately, immediately after] with Gates and Mullen on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Levin said.”

Lt. Dan Choi, perhaps the most famous face associated with DADT repeal, himself an American infantry officer in the United States Army fighting for his military career after coming out last year on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” had his own thoughts about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. Via Lez Get Real:

“When I first heard he was making it a priority to put this in the speech, my heart jumped,” Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic linguist, who was discharged from the military earlier this year for being gay, told News Weeks Eve Conant last night.

“I had thought—I’m going to keep my job, I will keep my job this year,” said Choi.
But after hearing Obama would “work with congress” and do it “this year”, Choi said, “I was so excited, but then he said he was going to ‘work with Congress.’” …. “I was hoping he might have come in with an executive order, already signed….”

“But Choi went on to say… “With everything Congress is failing to do? I took on a lot of impatience when I heard that…. Obama could have talked about this issue in every single one of those paragraphs. He could have simply said, ‘No gay soldier is going to lose their job this year.’

Note: This piece originally incorrectly identified Lt. Choi as a Marine. He is an American infantry officer in the United States Army.