After acknowledging lack of authority on policy, Pawlenty lobbies against DADT repeal
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm
- 11 Comments
With Congress set to vote on whether to eventually repeal the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian servicemembers, Minnesota’s politicians are weighing in on the issue. For Gov. Tim Pawlenty that means a change of posture: In December, he wrote that he had no authority to address the policy; on Wednesday, he sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them not to overturn the ban.
The measure to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — which could see a vote as soon as Thursday — is sponsored by Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Keith Ellison, James Oberstar, Betty McCollum, and Tim Walz.
But Pawlenty, a likely presidential candidate in 2012, doesn’t think a repeal a good idea:
“As you know, Guard units currently not only supplement active duty military units engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, they also provide states with indispensable help in responding to domestic emergencies and natural disasters. The impacts upon Guard units and all military units need to be understood before any significant policy changes are decided.
“It would be unwise for Congress to address this long-standing policy without the benefit of full hearings and the completion of the impact study being conducted by military leaders. I urge you to take no legislative action until the Department of Defense has completed its review and public hearings have been held to thoroughly discuss the findings.”
But it wasn’t long ago that Pawlenty acknowledged he had no authority to address the policy. In early December he told state Sen. Scott Dibble (pdf) that the issue wasn’t one for the governor to weigh in on.
“As you may know, this military policy is a federal issue,” he wrote. “There is no legal authority granted to governors regarding this matter.”
Meanwhile, a unanimous vote Wednesday by the St. Paul City Council in support of doing away with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was met with praise by the state’s top LGBT organization.
“With the approach of Memorial Day, a day we set aside to recognize the powerful sacrifices that men and women have made to serve their country over the decades, the City Council’s action today sends a powerful reminder to the community that some 65,000 people who’ve put their lives on the line to fight for freedom elsewhere are denied it at home,” said Monica Meyer, OutFront Minnesota’s Public Policy Director in a statement. “We have seen this in the past, and we have seen that expanding the opportunity of capable and talented Americans to serve their country actually serves their country very well.”
Read Pawlenty’s December letter to Dibble:
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Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
Governor Tim Pawlenty reverses a prior position to make himself look good to right-wing primary voters.
In other news, the sun rose in the east this morning, and the ocean is still wet.
Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Gadzooks!
Mayor Chris Coleman has the Pentagon shaking in it’s boots, but he can’t seem to manage to keep the pothole crews in his city on the job.
Will Outfront Minnesota come to the rescue of the beleagured, pot hole dodging citizens of St. Paul while the mayor and city council work on the vital issues of national defense?
Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 6:55 pm
Yeah, I’ve always thought those pothole patches should be in rainbow colors …
Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 11:39 pm
Oh Christ!! Mr. T-bags never served in the military in his ENTIRE life!! As soon as there is an opportunity to polish his loafers with the shiny luster of our servicemen and women’s badges he is right there to do it.. The ugly TRUTH that Mr. T-Bags doesn’t want Minnesota to know is that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are QUEERS that are much more Bad Ass then him.. I think he is frightened by queers with machine guns…
Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 11:54 pm
Gadzooks!
>>>>>Mayor Chris Coleman has the Pentagon shaking in it’s boots, but he can’t seem to manage to keep the pothole crews in his city on the job.
St Paul is the SMALLER city.. The reason that you are driving over potholes is because T-Bags diverted our State Treasury onto the local Treasury.. If anyone has been paying Attention our GVMNT is BROKE!! Thanx TBags!!
Comment posted May 28, 2010 @ 9:52 am
It’s pretty obvious that if you let people who are gay serve openly, you will have to let African Americans and Italian Americans, and Jews and Latinos serve too, even Norwegian Americans and Mormons, and we all know what a disaster that will be. Especially the Mormons, who wants to be in a foxhole with a guy wearing funny underwear? You can’t mix white hyper-heterosexual Puritan descendants of the pilgrims with any other group, period, it destroys morale. Didn’t we learn anything from the experiment where we let the Irish immigrants do the bulk of the fighting in the Civil War?
Comment posted May 28, 2010 @ 1:21 pm
To quote from a comment in another blog:
“Washington had a raging german vicious butch homo kick the Continental Army into shape. We’re free because of a queer kraut. Deal with it.”
I knew enough history to know about Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin Ludolf Gerhard (Frederick William Augustus Henry Ferdinand) von Steuben who was rumored to be gay. Wikipedia says that Baron von Steuben “was a Prussian aristocrat and military officer who served as inspector general and Major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline, helping to guide it to victory. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that became the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812, and served as General George Washington’s chief of staff in the final years of the war.”
Comment posted May 29, 2010 @ 8:24 pm
“The reason that you are driving over potholes is because T-Bags diverted our State Treasury onto the local Treasury..”
Gadzooks!
So it had nothing to do with the fact that the people we paid to fill those pot holes, the people that work for mayor Chris Coleman, were playing video games and drinking coffee instead.
T-Paw kept them from working! Bad, bad T-Paw!
We learn something new here every day.
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