Word: clintone
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Pietrangelo and others argue that Obama has leeway under the law that codified "Don't ask, don't tell" after the 1993 outcry when Bill Clinton tried to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly. The President, they say, could instruct the Secretary of Defense, who has the sole power to carry out the law, to make investigations a rarity, so that "Don't ask, don't tell" simply does not function. Indeed, Obama could tell the Pentagon that, as a general matter, it is not in the best interest of the armed forces to expel a service member solely...
...long as they keep their sexual orientation secret. The legislation means that a majority of the 535 members of Congress is going to have to vote to undo the ban - and that will have its political fallout. Obama is plainly taking his cue from the 1993 fiasco, which hurt Clinton's relationship with conservative members of Congress, both Democratic and Republican, and with many in uniform...
...Obama also has some ammunition that Clinton never had: a new Gallup poll finds that most conservatives - 58% - now support openly gay people serving in uniform (nationally, 69% support the change; when Clinton assumed office, a Gallup poll found 53% of those polled opposed lifting the ban). Perhaps even more surprising, 58% of self-described Republicans, and 60% of weekly churchgoers, also support gay men and women serving openly in uniform. "While the Administration to date has not taken action on the issue," the polling firm reported last Friday, "the Gallup Poll data indicate that the public-opinion environment favors...
...fundamental notion underlying U.S. diplomacy with Pyongyang since the Clinton era--a hawkish detour under George W. Bush notwithstanding--is that the North can be bribed. Yet the country's rhetoric since Obama's Inauguration has been vitriolic. It is possible that its most recent nuclear test will finally convince diplomats that the North Korea they see is the one they get: that perhaps on the question of nukes, it simply can't be bribed...
...really cover everyone? No issue did more to sink the Clinton health-care plan than its imposition of an employer mandate - a requirement that companies provide health insurance to their workers. And there's little evidence it will be any easier to include one this time around. "It will be a job killer, because employers who cannot afford it will reduce payroll and not hire new workers," warns Bruce Josten of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. What business would prefer to see - and what Obama rejected during his presidential campaign - is an individual mandate requiring everyone who doesn...