[Re-posted with fixed links.]
They're walking back the "pajamas" smear. I wonder who it was. Of course, in today's Washington journalism, where anonymity is granted to the powerful for virtually any spin they want to deliver (yes, that means you, John Harwood), we'll never find out. It reeks of Rahm to me. But Greg Sargent also reiterates the untruth that support for civil rights and outrage at HRC's sell-out is somehow only "on the left." The gay conservative and independent bloggers feel exactly the same way. Log Cabin Republicans and gay Independents are fully behind the demands of this "left fringe". Which means it is not a left-fringe, unless you have been marinated in Beltway cynicism too long.
As for a "closely divided" country, here is the latest Gallup polling data on gays in the military:
Americans are six percentage points more likely than they were four years ago to favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military, 69% to 63%. While liberals and Democrats remain the most supportive, the biggest increase in support has been among conservatives and weekly churchgoers -- up 12 and 11 percentage points, respectively.
60 percent of weekly church-goers are more against discrimination against gay servicemembers than Joe Solmonese, head of the largest gay rights group. This White House is to the right of 58 percent of self-described conservatives and to the right of 69 percent of the population as a whole. Obama's base in refusing to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is now the religious right, and even more and more of them oppose the policy. Meanwhile, the actual generation that elected him, that built an Internet movement that was critical to his success, is dismissed in this cowardly fashion by someone who lives in 1993 for ever.
This is the Clinton Syndrome. Never again. End the ban now.