According to one Department of Defense adviser, the Obama administration has found a creative way to both pacify the gay rights community and placate hawks who'd urged him to send more troops to Afghanistan. Reportedly, most of the contingent of 13,000 troops to be sent in the "Afghan surge" will be from a special "we never asked; they didn't tell" regiment of the Marine Corps. Martin Eisenstadt, a Sr. Fellow at the Harding Institute, claims in his blog today that he heard from Pentagon sources that this decision was designed as a bold political move aimed to give political cover to his troop buildup in Afghanistan. To quote:
I hear from sources in the administration that Obama, in response to accusations that he's all talk and no action, has come up with a grand plan to solve the gay and Afghanistan problems with one proverbial golf swing. Apparently, the homosexual community will no longer accept "Don't Ask Don't Tell." They are demanding the right to proudly and publicly travel to far away lands and be killed. Which after intense consultations across the aisle appears to be okay even with the right wing. Problem solved. The generals get their Afghanistan surge, the right gets to see America's homosexual population reduced and the left gets to feel like Barack is listening to them. Thank you again dear leader for teaching us the value of compromise.
[Full disclosure: There are those who would argue that I am actually one of the co-creators of "Martin Eisenstadt" and co-author of his upcoming book"I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (Wildly Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans." Eisenstadt, though, has always disputed this point.]