Believe it or not: moving towards energy independence

The Romney/Gingrich crowd would never admit it, but America is actually moving towards energy independence:

Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.

“There is no question that many national security policy makers will believe they have much more flexibility and will think about the world differently if the United States is importing a lot less oil,” said Michael A. Levi, an energy and environmental senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For decades, consumption rose, production fell and imports increased, and now every one of those trends is going the other way.”

As President Obama stated in January, oil production in America is at an eight year high.

James Fallows on the Obama presidency

James Fallows takes a balanced look at the successes and failures of the Obama presidency, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the man himself. It's long but well worth a read, especially for anyone who feels like Obama hasn't lived up to their expectations. A couple of excerpts about the presidency in general:

The end of a president’s first term is an important time to ask these questions, and not just because of the obvious bearing on his fitness for reelection. Hard as it is to have any dispassionate discussion of a president’s performance during an election year, it will be even harder once the election is over. If a year from now Obama is settling in for a second term, a halo effect will extend back to everything he did during his first four years. His programs will be more effective in reality, since he will get that many more years to cement them in with follow-up measures, supportive appointments to federal agencies and the courts, and possible vetoes of any attempts at repeal. And, through the lens of history, they will seem more effective, since whatever he did in his first term will appear to have been part of an overall plan that was ratified through reelection.

And:

We judge presidents by the specific expectations they ask to be measured against: inspiration (Kennedy, Reagan, Obama), competence and experience (Eisenhower, the first George Bush), strategic cunning (Johnson, Nixon), integrity and personal probity (Carter), inclusiveness and empathy (Clinton), unshakable resolve (the second Bush). But eventually each is judged against his predecessors, a process that properly starts with a reminder that all begin their terms ill-equipped, in ways that hindsight tends to obscure.

The sobering realities of the modern White House are: All presidents are unsuited to office, and therefore all presidents fail in certain crucial aspects of the job. All betray their supporters and provoke bitter criticism from their own side at some point in their term. And all are mis-assessed while in office, for reasons that typically depend more on luck and historical accident than on factors within their control. These realities do not excuse Obama’s failings, but they do put his evolution in perspective.

Presidents fail because not to fail would require, in the age of modern communications and global responsibilities, a range of native talents and learned skills no real person has ever possessed.

And then this really interesting insight into the inexorable growth of the U.S. national security apparatus:

It is no wonder that the “national-security state” in all its aspects has continued to grow throughout the decades since the beginning of World War II. Defense budgets, intelligence and surveillance networks, private military contractors, irregular forms of war: these and other executive-branch tools of international power work like a ratchet. Some presidents rapidly increase them in times of emergency, as George W. Bush did after the 9/11 attacks. No president scales them back. Thus the imbalance continues to grow between international efforts, where a president has an ever greater array of tools and weapons, and the frustrating domestic arena. Despite having run on his opposition to the Iraq War and overseen the formal U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Barack Obama has, if anything, expanded the range of executive military power, from his unilateral (and mainly successful) decision to intervene in Libya to his expansion of drone attacks

For the Obama-specific analysis, you're going to have to read it here at The Atlantic.

Quote for the day

"No Americans are in harm's way. It's just flying robots killing Libyans. You know, peace."

-- Stephen Colbert, last night on The Colbert Report

Obama's logic problem

Funny how everything seems different when you get into that big White House...

I have been generally supportive of our efforts in Libya, but I have to admit I'm a little dubious about President Obama's reasoning on this one:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

For people who have a hard time listening...

From President Obama's AIPAC speech today:

“Let me repeat what I actually said on Thursday,” Mr. Obama said in firm tones at one point, “not what I was reported to have said.”

“I said that the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

The president emphasized the “mutually agreed swaps,” then went into an elaboration of what he believes that means. Mr. Netanyahu, in his critique of Mr. Obama’s remarks, had ignored the “mutually agreed swaps” part of the president’s proposal.

“Since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means,” Mr. Obama said. “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.”

“There was nothing particularly original in my proposal,” he said. “This basic framework for negotiations has long been the basis for discussions among the parties, including previous U.S. administrations.”

More Wikileaks irony

The power of the human mind to embrace the double standard is amazing. Case in point: Wikileaks.

First Julian Assange and his cohorts cried foul when information about the details of his alleged sex crimes were leaked to the press.

Now the news that Wikileaks makes it staff members sign an agreement that they won't reveal anything about the workings of Wikileaks and holds them liable for up to $20 million in damages.

I guess their motto is, "Information wants to be free (unless it's our information)."

Quotes for the day

"What happened Sunday sent a message: When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say."

"The fact of the matter is you will not see bin Laden walking on this Earth again."

-- President Obama

The war Osama Bin Laden was fighting

I totally subscribe to the idea that Osama bin Laden's true aim was to cripple America economically. From Ezra Klein:

For bin Laden ... success was not to be measured in body counts. It was to be measured in deficits, in borrowing costs, in investments we weren’t able to make in our country’s continued economic strength. And by those measures, bin Laden landed a lot of blows.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the price tag on the Iraq War alone will surpass $3 trillion. Afghanistan likely amounts to another trillion or two. Add in the build-up in homeland security spending since 9/11 and you’re looking at yet another trillion. And don’t forget the indirect costs of all this turmoil: The Federal Reserve, worried about a fear-induced recession, slashed interest rates after the attack on the World Trade Center, and then kept them low to combat skyrocketing oil prices, a byproduct of the war in Iraq. That decade of loose monetary policy may well have contributed to the credit bubble that crashed the economy in 2007 and 2008.

Then there’s the post-9/11 slowdown in the economy, the time wasted in airports, the foregone returns on investments we didn’t make, the rise in oil prices as a result of the Iraq War, the cost of rebuilding Ground Zero, health care for the first responders and much, much more.

Making sense of it all

I thought Nicholas Kristof's thoughts on the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death were fairly insightful.

And this post "Killing a Monster" about the reaction of several New York City Buddhists helped to clarify my own thinking about where I stand. I liked the notion that monsters don't exist independently of the world around them, and it was good to reflect on the idea that all of our actions have consequences. But this quote from Ganden Thurman of Tibet House spoke to the fact that we live in a real world... a world with constraints that we can't always overcome:

Buddhism is about improving the way we make choices. Sometimes one’s choices are limited.

What to say

Hearing the news tonight, I found myself wanting to honk my horn, to yell, to make noise. And, ultimately, to be around other people. Unlike 9/11, when I wanted nothing other than to be alone, Osama bin Laden's death was an occasion to be spent in the company of others... in public.

So I made my way to a bar, a friendly place where I knew I'd know people. To revel in the demise of a man who has embodied evil for the last ten years.

To those who don't understand the celebratory mood that has broken out around America tonight, know that it has to do with more than bin Laden's death. It's about release, a hope and desire, if even for a moment, that we might escape the tragedy, pain, and unexpected difficulties of the first decade of the 21st century. Tonight we want to believe that this has all been a false start; that life might have been different had not bin Laden sent those planes crashing into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

We want to believe that it didn't have to be like this.

And so, for now, for tonight, I honked my horn, and I screamed in my car. And I'm glad that our Muslim president Barack Hussein Obama took out Osama bin Laden.

The unbearable weight of being

It's been a heavy week, both on the home front and in the world. And since I don't really want to get into my personal woes, I'll focus on the news.

After reading about the U.N. workers who were killed in response to a Florida Koran burning, I felt such an urge to succumb to isolationism: bring all the troops home, forget globalization, and erect a 30' wall at the U.S. border.

But, alas, things aren't so great in North America either. Earlier in the week I wrote this email to a couple of friends:

In my sociology class in Las Vegas, we discussed how ridiculously low the official poverty line is in America. A single person is considered to be living below the poverty line if they are making less than roughly $10,000/year.

This [New York Times] article looks at how much people really need to make in order to have a minimum level of economic survey (their figure is closer to $30,000/year for a single person).

Now consider the fact that the most recent statistics show that about 14% of Americans live below the "official" poverty line. Meanwhile, the top one percent hold forty percent of the country's wealth.

And I don't know how President Obama can justify it when General Electric pays no taxes, but I find it scandalous that GE's CEO Jeff Immelt heads Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

(On the other hand, look at the Oval Office alternatives. What has our nation come to when the likes of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachmann get air time as potential GOP presidential candidates?)

I HAD BEGUN TO THINK that we weren't really capable of dealing with climate change, but maybe we could at least lessen the problem with better nuclear technology. But watching the Fukushima mess in Japan is a reminder that we humans are mostly incapable of escaping the blinders we wear. We just have a really hard time dealing with the unknown unknowns as Andrew Revkin discusses here.

AND FINALLY: on the way to work earlier this week, I tuned in to Morning Edition midway through an interview about the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Listening to the guest speak, I made the assumption that he fit into a particular pigeon hole, namely the "liberal commentator." I took what he was saying with a hefty grain of salt until I learned that he was actually Neil Barofsky, the Inspector General for TARP.

So while news this week that the government actually made money on its TARP loans to the banks is good, we can't forget all of the other ways that the program failed to meet its objectives (for example, the utter failure to reduce the scale of the foreclosure debacle).

You can read Mr. Barofsky's op-ed piece in the Times here or listen to his NPR interview here.

It all circles back around... in a time of financial crisis, we took the best care of the people who needed the least assistance. Instead of simply stabilizing the banking system, we sent the perpetrators home with 100 cents on the dollar and big bonuses. The Republicans want to cut-cut-cut the spending that affects most folks but keep the huge tax breaks for GE and the rich.

And the world is so small now that when an idiot in Florida burns a book, people on the other side of the globe die for it. Go figure.

Obama on the end of DADT

Obama signed into law the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell today, and I choked up a bit watching the signing ceremony. It's worth setting aside 25 minutes of your time to watch the video on this historical occasion.

(Video link)

From the transcript of Obama's remarks (at the 19:18 mark):

Finally, I want to speak directly to the gay men and women currently serving in our military. For a long time your service has demanded a particular kind of sacrifice. You’ve been asked to carry the added burden of secrecy and isolation. And all the while, you’ve put your lives on the line for the freedoms and privileges of citizenship that are not fully granted to you.

You’re not the first to have carried this burden, for while today marks the end of a particular struggle that has lasted almost two decades, this is a moment more than two centuries in the making.

There will never be a full accounting of the heroism demonstrated by gay Americans in service to this country; their service has been obscured in history. It’s been lost to prejudices that have waned in our own lifetimes. But at every turn, every crossroads in our past, we know gay Americans fought just as hard, gave just as much to protect this nation and the ideals for which it stands.

There can be little doubt there were gay soldiers who fought for American independence, who consecrated the ground at Gettysburg, who manned the trenches along the Western Front, who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima. Their names are etched into the walls of our memorials. Their headstones dot the grounds at Arlington.

And so, as the first generation to serve openly in our Armed Forces, you will stand for all those who came before you, and you will serve as role models to all who come after. And I know that you will fulfill this responsibility with integrity and honor, just as you have every other mission with which you’ve been charged....

Some of you remembered I visited Afghanistan just a few weeks ago. And while I was walking along the rope line -- it was a big crowd, about 3,000 -- a young woman in uniform was shaking my hand and other people were grabbing and taking pictures. And she pulled me into a hug and she whispered in my ear, “Get ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ done.” And I said to her, “I promise you I will.”

For we are not a nation that says, “don’t ask, don’t tell.” We are a nation that says, “Out of many, we are one.” We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes that all men and women are created equal. Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals that we uphold today. And now, it is my honor to sign this bill into law.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE, it was wonderful to see Zoe Dunning on the stage with the President. I met Zoe back in the 90s when she was first becoming active in the fight for the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in the armed forces. Less than 20 years has passed since that meeting and yet it feels like a lifetime ago. It drove home for me just how long this struggle has taken, and that made today all the sweeter.

Disquieting... and disturbing

I woke up today to the news that a 19yo here in Portland was arrested last night after attempting to set off what he believed was a car bomb parked near 25,000 people attending the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

After watching MSNBC's video of the story, the next one that automatically played was a report on an imminent Wikileaks release of documents larger than any to date. I guess I'm a realist and recognize that compromises are necessary in life. You deal with that by setting boundaries on what you're willing to do. You decide, for example, that you may need to negotiate with some nasty people in order to prevent a crime, but rule out torture as a way of getting information to achieve that same end. Where the line is drawn is difficult and subject to disagreement, a situation that is unavoidable in a democracy.

Julian Assange, however, is a purist. A fundamentalist. And essentially an anarchist. Sometimes he makes my blood boil. Video here.

Turning the page: Obama, Iraq, and America

Marc Ambinder has a great annotation of President Obama's Oval Office address on the end of combat operations in Iraq. Worth a read. And worth watching. As a summer of mosque controversies, deepwater disasters, and bleak economic news comes to an end, even I have to admit to a bit of Obama fatigue and political indifference. Watching the president tonight... helped me to turn the page a bit on all of that.

I know tomorrow will offer more of the same as yesterday. But if we remember that ten years ago we all had different outlooks on the world than we now hold, we can hope that after another decade we'll be at a place that feels better than where we stand today.

(Video link)

Where America and the Muslim world meet

I just read Ross Douthat's thoughtful column about two different conceptions of what it means to be an American. It struck a chord, particularly as I'm halfway through (and thoroughly engrossed in) Richard Perlstein's Nixonland, a nearly 900 page tome that traces the widening fissure between these two Americas during the Nixon years.

Douthat uses this lens to look at the current controversy over the proposed mosque that would be located near the World Trade Center site:

The first America tends to make the finer-sounding speeches, and the second America often strikes cruder, more xenophobic notes. The first America welcomed the poor, the tired, the huddled masses; the second America demanded that they change their names and drop their native languages, and often threw up hurdles to stop them coming altogether. The first America celebrated religious liberty; the second America persecuted Mormons and discriminated against Catholics.

But both understandings of this country have real wisdom to offer, and both have been necessary to the American experiment’s success. During the great waves of 19th-century immigration, the insistence that new arrivals adapt to Anglo-Saxon culture — and the threat of discrimination if they didn’t — was crucial to their swift assimilation. The post-1920s immigration restrictions were draconian in many ways, but they created time for persistent ethnic divisions to melt into a general unhyphenated Americanism.

The same was true in religion. The steady pressure to conform to American norms, exerted through fair means and foul, eventually persuaded the Mormons to abandon polygamy, smoothing their assimilation into the American mainstream. Nativist concerns about Catholicism’s illiberal tendencies inspired American Catholics to prod their church toward a recognition of the virtues of democracy, making it possible for generations of immigrants to feel unambiguously Catholic and American.

I agreed over the weekend with President Obama's comments about the mosque and its planners' right to build it. The president, however, is also pursuing a course with respect to a mostly Muslim part of the world which I don't support: a secret, shadow offensive against America's enemies--as he defines them--that relies on drones and cruise missiles rather than American boots on the ground. This approach can't be a long term path to U.S. security: it can only recruit the next generation of those willing to attack us.

Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and spies that could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections; a weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent abuses by America’s secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties....

The administration’s demands have accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.

For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A.

And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.

And the more I read about the insanity of the Vietnam war in Nixonland, the more I see parallels in Afghanistan: billions of dollars spent on an objective made nearly impossible by the fact that it's an American, and not Afghani, one.

ONE OF THE MOST INTELLIGENT DISCUSSIONS I've heard recently about America's security in this post-911 world is this Talk of the Nation interview with former CIA official and historian Graham Fuller. From his book A World Without Islam, which argues that our relationship with the Middle East wouldn't be significantly different in the absence of Islam:

Washington — perhaps as many global powers have done in the past — uses what I might call the "immaculate conception" theory of crises abroad. That is, we believe we are essentially out there, just minding our own business, trying to help make the world right, only to be endlessly faced with a series of spontaneous, nasty challenges from abroad to which we must react. There is not the slightest consideration that perhaps US policies themselves may have at least contributed to a series of unfolding events. This presents a huge paradox: how can America on the one hand pride itself on being the world’s sole global superpower, with over seven hundred military bases abroad and the Pentagon’s huge global footprint, and yet, on the other hand, be oblivious to and unacknowledging of the magnitude of its own role — for better or for worse — as the dominant force charting the course of world events? This Alice-in-Wonderland delusion affects not just policy makers, but even the glut of think tanks that abound in Washington. In what may otherwise often be intelligent analysis of a foreign situation, the focus of each study is invariably the other country, the other culture, the negative intentions of other players; the impact of US actions and perceptions are quite absent from the equation. It is hard to point to serious analysis from mainstream publications or think tanks that address the role of the United States itself in helping create current problems or crises, through policies of omission or commission. We’re not even talking about blame here; we’re addressing the logical and self-evident fact that the actions of the world’s sole global superpower have huge consequences in the unfolding of international politics. They require examination.

There is a further irony here: How can a nation like the US, which expresses such powerful outpourings of patriotism and ubiquitous unfurling of the flag on all occasions, seem quite obtuse to the existence of nationalism and patriotism in other countries? Washington never fared very well in the Cold War in understanding the motives and emotions of the nonaligned world; it dismissed or even suppressed inconvenient local nationalist aspirations, thereby ending up pushing a large grouping of countries toward greater sympathy with the Soviet Union. This was a kind of strategic blindness that viewed other nations’ interests and preferences as something that needed to be hemmed in, or isolated. We have been obtuse toward nationalism and identity issues in the Middle East and have lumped it all into the basket of "Islam."

And this:

History did not begin with 9/11. Our dealings with the Middle East go back a long way. The attack on 9/11 was a violent, extremist, and outrageous act, but it was also almost a culmination of a preceding chain of events over many years. If we choose to see history beginning at 9/11 — whereby we suddenly become the sole justifiably aggrieved party, now authorized to bring vigilante justice to the world — then we will continue to do what we have been doing all along, with disastrous consequences evident to all.

Those words--history did not begin with 9/11--stuck in my head even before I began reading Nixonland. I'm a child of the 60s. My parents were hippies. I think I have a decent grasp of history. But over the last few days I've started to flesh out in my mind events that were remarkably hazy for all of their proximity to my childhood. The Vietnam War, the antiwar movement, and the '68 Democratic convention, for example, aren't just signposts anymore. And I have a clearer picture now of why issues like gun rights carry so much significance for conservatives.

I've long been familiar with the events of the 60s, yet I think I operated in a common illusion, one that most people experience. It's similar to the one that Fuller describes when he speaks of his "immaculate conception" theory of how governments see the world.

Deep down we all sort of imagine that history began with us.

A geopolitical video history of the atomic bomb, 1945-1998

It starts slow, but the pace picks up...

(Video link)

More from The New Yorker.

First 500 days

First Read takes notes of what's happened in Obama's first 500 days of office:

Day 500: With hyperpartisan stories like the Romanoff job offer (dredged back into the news), the kickoff of the Blagojevich trial, and, of course, the continued oil spill, it might go unnoticed by some that today is Barack Obama's 500th day in office (though, some might argue TOMORROW is 500; We’ll let Judge Mark Knoller decide, but we digress). There's always a lot of hype surrounding a president's first 100 days, but Obama has now been in office five times longer than that marker and what a stretch it's been. On a day -- in a presidency -- when small-picture brushfire stories (like Romanoff) are dominating, here's a step back at the big picture and all that's gone on. It could almost read like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”… Oil spill, Health care, Tea Parties, Financial reform, bailouts for cars and banks, the stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, Toyota, Haiti, L’Aquila, Iran's elections, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Israel flotilla, North Korea sinks South Korean ship, Afghanistan troop increase, underwear bomber, Ft. Hood, Times Square, Predator drones, Nobel Peace Prize, State of the Union/Bobby Jindal, Ted Kennedy. Scott Brown, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin resigns, Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, special elections, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, incumbent fever (Bennett, Specter, et al), Charlie Crist's party switch, Evan Bayh, Sex Scandals: The Appalachian Trail, John Ensign, Eric Massa, Mark Souder, Jim Traficant out of jail, announces independent bid, The Salahis, Carrie Prejean, It’s John Edwards’ baby, Rangel loses his gavel, The Replacements: (Blago/Burris, Gillibrand/Caroline Kennedy, Beau Biden/Iraq/hospitalization, Al Franken sworn in as a senator MONTHS after Election Day, The Gores separate. And, by the way, for a little more context, remember this: JFK, at Day 500, had not yet faced the Cuban Missile Crisis and his attorney general, RFK, had yet to order the integration of Ole Miss. or the University of Alabama.

Another step forward on DADT

From the New York Times:

The House voted on Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban, which would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members. The report is due by Dec. 1.

The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

Supporters of the repeal hailed it as a matter of basic fairness and civil rights, while opponents charged that Democrats and President Obama were destabilizing the military to advance a liberal social agenda.

“On Memorial Day, America will come together and honor all who served our nation in uniform,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech, noting the symbolic timing of the debate. “I urge my colleagues to vote for the repeal of this discriminatory policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and make America, more American.”

One step closer to ending Don't Ask Don't Tell

The White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress seem to be ready to take action on ending the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, though the agreement may still give the Pentagon time to complete its assessment of potential impacts:

Under the deal, lawmakers could vote soon to repeal the contentious 17-year-old policy, which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services; the House Democratic leaders are considering taking up the measure as soon as this week. But the policy would not change until sometime after Dec. 1, when the Pentagon completes a review of its readiness to deal with the new policy. President Obama would also be required to certify that repeal would not harm military readiness.

If it passed, the measure could clear the way for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military as early next year, ending a policy that Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, all say they oppose.

Howard Dean to Obama: repeal DADT this year

Howard Dean has released a letter he wrote to President Obama urging him to follow through and repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell this year:

Americans clearly understand that if someone is brave enough to take a bullet for the USA, then they should have the same equal rights guaranteed to every American under the law -- whether they are serving in the military, or when they come home.

While I understand the need to research how repealing DADT will affect members of the military, the law can still be repealed with an implementation timeline this year.

The time to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is now. I urge you to take immediate action to insure that Congress includes the repeal of DADT -- with an implementation timeline -- in the Defense Authorization bill currently under consideration.

You can sign a petition to express your support for a 2010 repeal here.