A Stitch in Haste

Can it be? A senior, albeit retired, conservative Republican politician calling for the end of DADT? (Also at WSJ - $.)

As a conservative Republican member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, I was hardly a card-carrying member of the gay-rights lobby. I opposed then, and continue to oppose, same-sex marriage, or the designation of gays as a constitutionally protected minority class. Service in the armed forces is another matter. The bottom line here is that, with nearly a decade and a half of the hybrid "don't ask, don't tell" policy to guide us, I have become deeply impressed with the growing weight of credible military opinion which concludes that allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not pose insurmountable problems for the good order and discipline of the services.

Asked about reconsideration of the don't ask, don't tell policy in favor of a more open and honest approach, the simplistic responses by several Republican presidential candidates left me -- and I suspect many others -- questioning whether those candidates really even understood the issue, or were simply pandering to the perceived "conservative base." The fact is, equal treatment of gay and lesbian service members is about as conservative a position as one cares to articulate.

This from former Georgia representative Bob Barr. Barr is of course correct that it is DADT, not its repeal, that is the "unwise social experiment in time of war" (which I believe is the current iteration of the radical social conservative talking point on the matter). "Gay soldiers in wartime" works. We know that -- the British have conclusively demonstrated it, as have the Israelis. Neither are "token" fighting forces. Neither can be summarily dismissed as irrelevant non sequiturs. Nor, or course, can the untold numbers of closeted gay soldiers who have served with distinction over the years (Clinton's current deflection on the subject).

Here, meanwhile, is a bona fide "unwise social experiment in time of war" --

For the first time since the Iraq war began, the Army is notifying thousands from a special category of reservists that they must report this summer for medical screening and other administrative tasks.

The decision to issue "muster" orders for 5,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, or IRR, is not a prelude to a new mobilization or deployment of reservists to Iraq, an Army spokesman said. Instead it is part of a new effort to fix an IRR call-up system that failed on multiple fronts early in the Iraq war.

The IRR is really nothing more than a mailing list -- it consists of discharged military personnel who have completed their bona fide service on active duty, the Reserves or the National Guard and are now simply "out." The IRR was meant solely as a last buffer before a draft in case of total military catastrophe.

To activate these ex-soldiers -- or even to think about thinking about activating them -- under these circumstances is the last act of desperation by a Defense Department that is not only running out of soldiers, but also running out of ways to spin their chronic recruiting shortfalls. There are only so many grandmothers and idiots whom they can enlist.

To merely parrot that allowing gays to openly serve is an "unwise social experiment in time of war" is as intellectually empty an act as a junior high schooler protesting that "gays are icky." A responsible Defense Department would undertake an extensive, impartial review -- of enlistees, commanders, veterans, and also the Brits and Israelis. To answer the question once and for all. The military should have to defend against enemies, not partisan talking points.

A responsible Congress, meanwhile, already knows what to do. The fact that this Congress -- especially the four sitting senators seeking the Democratic presidential nomination -- doesn't actually do it, merely shows that its members -- especially the four sitting senators seeking the Democratic presidential nomination -- are in fact not responsible legislators.