May 7th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Obama Administration Set to Fire Its First Gay Military Linguist
I totally understand that the White House political team doesn’t really want to deal with this issue, but absurd as firing soldiers for being gay was under George W. Bush it’s double-absurd for it to be happening under a president who’s acknowledged that it’s an unjust policy.
The fact of the matter is that on any given week, it’ll be more convenient to deal with this issue next week. But that just means you never get around to dealing with it. May as well just suck it up and do the right thing.
45 Responses to “Obama Administration Set to Fire Its First Gay Military Linguist”
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May 7th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Somehow that seems oddly relevant to this breaking story: Breaking: Gay Marriage Opponent Topless Photos Leaked.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Dirty, dirty butt sex trumps national security.
Tomorrow’s Washington Times headline today.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
i thought this link was interesting. i have no reason to down him yet, but i wonder how long it will take to repeal dadt.
http://glaadblog.org/2009/05/07/a-personal-promise-from-president-obama-on-dont-ask-dont-tell/
May 7th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
The fact of the matter is that on any given week, it’ll be more convenient to deal with this issue next week.
Political benefits from tackling sooner than later. This is moving fast. The time it a few months ago, but now may still do.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
A linguist is not a translator, nor a person who is fluent in more than one language. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, not learning to speak lots of languages.
That said, this is very unfortunate.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
If the man in question wee an English linguist, he might not be such a valuable security asset. Switching “that” to “which” rarely saves lives. Since he is an Arabic linguist (who presumably does speak English), he is probably much more valuable than most translators. The differences in Arabic dialects are large, with many subtleties. A linguist, rather than a translator, probably does a much better job of interpreting true meanings from unfamiliar idioms and such.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
um… “wee” being an obscure Devonshire pronunciation of “were”, as any linguist will tell you.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linguist
“1: a person accomplished in languages ; especially : one who speaks several languages”
May 7th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
The time is now. An American soldier could be lying on his death bed dying of wounds suffered in battle and be simultaneously dismissed from the service for his sexual preference.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is a pathetic policy and a National disgrace.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I wonder if this might be another pump fake by the Obama administration to outmaneuver opponents of the repeal of DADT. The story here is perfect: highly skilled armed serviceperson with, frankly, indispensable skills, must be fired due to a wrong and discriminatory law.
Now the story has become DADT costs American lives.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Hm. I like how tvargs (#10 above) thinks, though I’m hesitant to assume Democratic sneakiness when I see Democratic trepidation.
The thing is, Obama’s blessed with opponents who have two settings for their manufactured outrage: batshit insane, and whiny little bitch. And most people *know* this, subconsciously if not explicitly.
If he repeals DADT now, the right is going to have trouble deciding whether to go off-message from the great condiment condemnation, to which Mark Halperin is probably already jerking off.
Seriously, when your opponents are attacking you over mustard, you might as well do whatever you want, because *any* comparison will make you look good.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
I am Republican, and I am against gay marriage for reasons that I will not get into here. That said, DADT should be done away with.
The entire rationale behind it is that having gay people in the service makes the other soldiers uncomfortable and thus hurts morale. This breaks down to two sub-reasons. The first is that gay people are icky, which is dumb and anyone who feels that way can get over it, and honestly I don’t think those feelings are as prevelent in today’s military anyway. The second sub-reason has to do with not wanting 2 people who might be attracted to one another and start a relationship in the same unit, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons. Honestly I think this rationale has some validity, but given that we now have women in the armed forces at a reasonably high percentage, this ship has sailed.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
“Set to fire”? You mean burn at the stake?
May 8th, 2009 at 12:46 am
JD: Thanks for your honesty. There are some issues that regardless of our differences we can agree are idiotic for the same reasons.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:01 am
If you watch the Maddow piece on Lt. Choi, you will see that he served in Iraq and used hiw Arabic fluency to talk with local officials, etc.
He may or may not have acted as an interpreter (translators do documents, interpreters do spoken word) but he used his linguistic skills in theater in service to our nation.
He wants to be able to go back to Iraq. That ain’t no sissy that wants to go back to Iraq!
I say let him serve (and have already e-mailed Mr. Obama to express same).
May 8th, 2009 at 1:29 am
In the military an ‘x’ linguist is someone with some degree of fluency in language ‘x’ in order to provide x to english (and sometimes the other way) translations several different media (including in person). Where x is any given language (except cunning)
May 8th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Obama is simply a coward when it comes to gay rights. I don’t know what it will take before progressives get the message.
I read on HuffPo that there’s a study coming out by military experts that finds Obama has the ability not to outright repeal DADT via executive order, but cripple the law by ordering the military to stop investigating suspected homosexuals. It would be a welcome first step toward a later repeal, which I expect by the end of this year. Should Obama ignore the study’s findings (assuming they confirm the theory) and allow our fighting gay men and women to continue being discharged, then many will hopefully be able to open their eyes and see his cowardice more clearly. If he makes the bold move to end the wretched practice, I’ll gladly eat my words.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:20 am
“I wonder if this might be another pump fake by the Obama administration to outmaneuver opponents of the repeal of DADT. The story here is perfect: highly skilled armed serviceperson with, frankly, indispensable skills, must be fired due to a wrong and discriminatory law.
Now the story has become DADT costs American lives.”
this is the kind of delusional thinking that obama supporters continually indulge in.
that somehow, obama is playing a strategic long game where every move can only be judged in 6 months or a year.
face it.
he’s basically being a coward because he doesn’t want to deal with this issue, doesn’t want it to “distract” him from more “important” issues.
its flat-out, plain and simple cowardice.
progressives would do well to recognize this fact and stop making excuses each time obama chooses an easy and expedient political choice, rather than doing something that might rub even a few voters the wrong way.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:21 am
It would seem that you can spend several years at the Naval Language School in beautiful Monterey, CA learning Arabic at the taxpayers’ expense, then, just before you get shipped to Iraq, you can announce you are gay, get discharged, and get a job with an oil company in Abu Dhabi at three times the pay.
It would seem like the injustice is being done to the taxpayers.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:52 am
1: a person accomplished in languages ; especially : one who speaks several languages
I speak two languages fluently and get by in another one, but I’m certainly not a linguist.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:26 am
It’s good to see you on board with regard to repealing DADT, Mr. Sailer, even if from a slightly different angle from the rest of us!
May 8th, 2009 at 6:06 am
he’s basically being a coward because he doesn’t want to deal with this issue, doesn’t want it to “distract” him from more “important” issues.
Nice use of scare quotes there. Yes, this is a matter of fundamental justice, and yes people die because of it. The same could be said (for different reasons) about bankruptcy law, or health care, or bombing civilians in Afghanistan. Obama isn’t doing much about those either, possibly because he’s been trying to wrap up the bloodbath in Iraq or find something viable in the American auto industry. Seriously, it’s the Augean stables.
That’s not an excuse. He is responsible for sins of omission.
I don’t think I’d realized how inhuman an institution the American presidency is until I’d seen Obama try to do the job. The President either has to work himself to death just so he can look at himself in the mirror at the end of the day or…clear a lot of brush, I suppose.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:28 am
More Steve Sailer fail – There is a Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a Defense Language Institute in Monterey, but there is no “Naval Language Institute” anywhere.
They aren’t even on the same campus.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:46 am
The thing is–Obama can’t end the policy–it was enacted as a statute by congress, and the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact military regulations. The linked article recognizes this, but demands that Obama refuse to enforce the policy anyway–which sounds like constitutional advice John Yoo might have given George Bush. Congress needs to act–it’s not the president’s proper role.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:23 am
I am on the edge regarding gay marriage (mainly regarding the precise definition of marriage itself, wholly for homosexuals have equivalent rights), but DADT is ludicrous. This is not helping anyone.
Congress should repeal such an anachronistic law.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:26 am
you know a measure makes sense when even the trolls are on board.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Can’t Obama use his pardon power to offer blanket amnesty to servicemen charged with “telling”? If it’s prohibited under the UCMJ*, then it counts a “crime against the United States,” no?
*is it?
May 8th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Until they’ve changed the policy, there is no choice. Obama can’t not fire this person on a one-off basis. This must be dealt with at the policy level. If that is what we want to deal with this week, I’m all for it (we need to keep linguists in uniform). But Obama can’t start picking and choosing cases in which to direct the military to ignore active policy.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Mike @ 28: If it’s a “policy” question, then Obama can use his authority as CIC + Chief Exec to unilaterally change the policy. But IIRC, it’s not a policy question — it’s actually a law passed by Congress.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Is the world ending? Both 24Ahead and Sailer said something I mostly agree with?
May 8th, 2009 at 8:34 am
[...] and other veterans, and will be a distraction from more pressing issues. Then again, as Matt Yglesias points out, “The fact of the matter is that on any given week, it’ll be more convenient to [...]
May 8th, 2009 at 8:56 am
finally, rea (#24) and mike (#28) make the right point:
until the law is changed, obama has to follow the law.
that’s kind of how constitutional government with a limited executive works.
that said, i agree that he should start lobbying congress to change the damned law. he said he’d do it during the campaign, and he needs to do it.
but now we are talking about where this effort should go on a long list of priorities. no sane person will argue that this was the most important legislative policy for the obama team to address on jan. 21. is it #4? #44?
that’s partly going to depend on how much political capital will be required to see it through congress, and how much resistance or encouragement he gets from the military (remember, it was the military that balked at clinton’s move).
my guess is that obama’s team is watching the gay marriage movement unfold, and trying to calibrate when to catch that wave so as to get dadt repealed with the minimum expenditure of their own effort and capital.
it is slightly amazing–and pleasing–how fast public opinion seems to be shifting on gay marriage. what might have aroused huge resistance six months ago, may become conventional wisdom six months from now. i’m guessing that dadt will be repealed in the next year, and that by that time obama will have the country squarely behind him in doing it.
is that cowardice? eh. i’d say it’s just prudent sensitivity to what is politically possible.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Wrong. He can only use his CiC authority to order the military to stop investigating. That would do nothing to protect people WHO OUT THEMSELVES.
Tell your congressman to sponsor a bill. Bitching about Obama just shows that people are pig ignorant about how the law works.
Feh.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I think Sestak (D-PA) had a good point in his conversation with Rachel Maddow:
After Bush’s abuse of the rule of law during his term (i.e., picking and choosing which laws to obey), we need to make a concerted effort to repeal laws we believe to beunjust, instead of just ignoring them.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Obama didn’t feel the need to follow the law when it applied to the great and the mighty, he only enforces is against the mild and the weak.
And you wonder why call him corrupt so often. The man is scum, and at some point the rest of you are going to see it just like I do. Well, most of you anyway.
If the Bush years taught us anything, it’s that a determined executive can get absolutely anything they want. there is no excuse for Obama to fail at anything. He’s claimed all those powers as his own. He’s refused to renounce any of them.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:29 am
NB, fuck that.
You give what you get, you get what you give.
You keep playing nice while the other side kicks you in the balls. Lets see who ends up actually getting what they want. And you pathetic liberals wonder why nobody wants to be called that anymore.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Given that this guy’s a gay male, he may be a linguist, but I’d guess that he’s not a very cunning one.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:30 am
For more on what Obama can actually do, go here.
For a quick refresher on how laws are made, go here.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Yeah, like when he let those AIG guys keep their bonuses!
Oh, wait. That was following the law, too.
Moron.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Julian,
Very witty haha
May 8th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
“It would seem that you can spend several years at the Naval Language School in beautiful Monterey, CA learning Arabic at the taxpayers’ expense, then, just before you get shipped to Iraq, you can announce you are gay, get discharged, and get a job with an oil company in Abu Dhabi at three times the pay.
It would seem like the injustice is being done to the taxpayers.”
Another great reason to oppose Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, eh, Sailer?
May 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Steve @19, you sack of bile, Lt. Choi served a tour in Iraq. He is willing to go back and serve another tour.
Are you?
May 9th, 2009 at 2:17 am
That would make total sense if it weren’t completely made-up. Choi already served in Iraq. He wants to return to serve again. This time he just doesn’t want to have to hide his sexual orientation. Because, you know, he has enough shit on his mind already, being in a war zone and all.
At any rate, Steve Sailer’s disdain for Arabic language training in the armed forces seems to indicate his lack of support for the troops and their mission. Clearly Sailer is on the side of the terrorists.
Oh, by the way, thanks to DADT, a straight soldier can be discharged after wasting taxpayer dollars on silly language training too, simply by saying they are gay, since that constitutes homosexual conduct according to the law.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Thats total bs.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
просто респект