President Obama is
scheduled to speak to Human Rights Campaign's dinner this
Saturday in order to quell concerns within the gay community
about his failure to act on gay marriage and the military's
"Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. I think that this is a telling
metaphor for his presidency. Faced with a difficult dilemma
-- whether to keep his promises to an important political
constituency at the risk of causing a huge controversy that will
threaten other domestic priorities -- his solution is to just
give a speech. In this case, the matter happens to be gay rights,
but it could just as easily be any other issue. The problem for
Obama is that while speeches are enough during a campaign, they
have diminishing returns when you're president, because at some
point you have to actually make decisions that are sure to anger
one side or another.
UPDATE: Obama booster
Andrew Sullivan is harsher:
If Obama wants to support gay equality, he knows what to do. If
Pelosi and Reid want to support gay equality, they know what to
do. If HRC believes in gay equality, they also know what to do.
So spare us the schmoozing and the sweet-talking and do
it. Until then, Mr president, why don't you have a nice
steaming cup of shut-the-f***-up?
