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Gibbs: Obama Agrees That DOJ’s Use Of Powell’s Old Views To Defend DADT In Court Is ‘Odd’

By Igor Volsky on Apr 6, 2010 at 8:00 pm

President Barack Obama agrees that the Department of Justice’s decision to use Gen. Collin Powell’s past support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) to defend a policy he no longer agrees with is “odd,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at today’s White House press briefing. Gibbs stressed that the DOJ must uphold current law, but admitted that the legal challenge to DADT (Log Cabin Republicans v. United States) places the government in the awkward position of defending a policy the administration does not support:

KERRY ELEVELD (THE ADVOCATE): Is the president at all concerned that DOJ is a little insular or tone deaf on issues that are sort of politically sticky, especially those of interest to the LGBT community?

GIBBS: I will say this, obviously the President has enunciated his support for ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” rolling back — made a commitment to roll back DOMA in the campaign. Obviously, the Justice Department has — is charged with upholding the law as it exists, not as the President would like to see it. We have obviously taken steps on the front of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I think we’ve made a genuine amount of progress. I will say, was it odd that they included previous statements from General Colin Powell on a belief set that he no longer had? I don’t think the President would disagree with that.

Watch it:

Gibbs’ comments may be refreshing, but the administration’s refusal to lay out a time line for repealing DADT and its complete reliance on the Pentagon’s policy review suggests that the President is not planning on turning the the DOJ debacle into an opportunity. Obama could argue that the DOJ’s reliance on Powell’s outdated arguments and debunked conservative talking points undermines the credibility of the government and hurts the repeal effort. He could announce that he’s calling on Congress to insert repeal legislation into this year’s Defense Authorization bill to meet his administration’s commitment to civil rights and equality and keep his pledge to the LGBT community. (Incidentally, CAP’s Larry Korb has laid out eight areas where the military must change rules and regulations in order to effectively implement the new policy in short order.) But, from the tone of Gibbs’ answer, this is unlikely. The administration will silently watch as the DOJ defends the policy it’s promised to overturn.

Meanwhile, Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin and Senior Fellow Nathaniel Frank, who recently gave depositions in this case are claiming that the DOJ misrepresented their arguments about “whether privacy concerns for service members constituted a rational basis for the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993.” Palm’s House Blend reports that attorneys representing the Log Cabin Republicans “now plan to use new depositions by Belkin and Frank in its response to the DOJ brief.” Read them here.

Related Posts

Health

Nonprofit Health Insurers Sue Massachusetts To Increase Health Care Premiums

By Igor Volsky on Apr 6, 2010 at 7:00 pm

masshealthreformLast week, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance used its rate review authority to reject “235 of 274 increases proposed by Massachusetts health insurers for small businesses and individuals” and now six insurance companies — all nonprofits — have filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to reverse the ruling. By rejecting the increases, the state effectively capped the rates at their previous levels, which insurers are claiming “were not even sufficient to cover last year’s costs.” Boston Globe has the details:

The proposed rate hikes would have taken effect April 1 for plans covering thousands of small businesses and individuals. Insurers wanted to raise base rates an average of 8 percent to 32 percent; tacked on to that are often additional costs calculated according to factors such as the size and age of the workforce.

Insurers have long argued that adverse selection — a sicker risk pool of applicants — and rising health care costs are forcing premium increases. They point to several government reports that show how “insurance companies pay some hospitals and doctors twice as much money as others for essentially the same patient care” because hospitals and dominant physician groups with the greatest market leverage are “able to demand the most money.” Consumer advocates and policy wonks, meanwhile, contend that insurers fail to use their market leverage to negotiate lower rates with providers and request premiums increases that are far higher than medical inflation to pad their profits. The Massachusetts division of insurance cited all of these reasons in denying the new premium increases:

- The disapproved rate filings failed to illustrate how the carriers pay similarly situated providers differing rates of reimbursement based solely on quality of care, mix of patients, intensity of services, and geographic location at which care is provided.

- The disapproved rate filings failed to demonstrate that carriers have renegotiated provider reimbursement rates;

- The disapproved rate filings were significantly above the medical consumer price index and the filings could not adequately explain the wide difference.

That last reason really sticks out for me. During health care reform, WellPoint tried to argue that rising health care costs necessitated the big jump in premiums, only to later admit that they were padding proposed increases to allow room for negotiations with regulators. I suspect that there is probably little of that going on here.

Insurers aren’t doing enough to control access costs, they may be artificially inflating premiums to cover their losses and turn a profit. But the Massachusetts government can also go further in implementing cost controls throughout the health care system, particularly on the provider end. For instance, Patrick had introduced legislation giving the state insurance commissioner authority to reject rates charged by medical providers and a recent RAND study has laid out 11 other options for reducing health care spending in the states. This lawsuit will play itself out, but it’s a stark reminder of the need to implement some of RAND’s cost control proposals and a harbinger for what the HHS and state insurance exchanges can expect when they use the rate review authority in the new health care law to keep insurers with the most egregious premium hikes out of the exchanges. Lawsuits!

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 6, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Swimming for my life:

— States with high levels of federal spending back McCain but it’s not clear what we can infer from this fact.

— “In Praise of Realism (and Against ‘Nonsense’ Jurisprudence)”.

— Excited to see Katee Sackoff back on TV.

— Exxon paid no corporate income tax in 2009.

— Obama administration boosting programs for low-income renters.

— Jennifer Abel stands up for Iceland’s strippers.

— Are Democrats going to blow the Illinois Senate race.

From Oh No Ono, my second-favorite Danish band, comes “Swim”.

Security

Did The Iraq War Take Military Option For Iran ‘Off The Table’?

By Matt Duss on Apr 6, 2010 at 6:00 pm

081112-F-7823A-160Earlier today I attended the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative‘s conference Iran: Prospects for Regime Change. During the second panel of the day, which focused on U.S. policy options toward Iran, panelists Elliott Abrams, currently of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute both lamented the fact that the Obama administration seemed so disinclined to threaten — let alone take — preventive military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Abrams was particularly incensed that top military leaders like Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have been downplaying the possibility of military action against Iran. “Israelis I speak to can’t believe how stupid the U.S. is to take a military strike off the table,” Abrams said.

Left unmentioned, however, was the single most important factor acting to constrain U.S. policy options on Iran, specifically in regard to military force: Iraq. In numerous ways — stress on our military, regional destabilization and unrest, demonstration of the limits of U.S. power and influence, the need to shore up Iraq’s fragile government — the U.S. intervention in Iraq has made the idea of U.S. military action against Iran basically a non-starter for U.S. policymakers.

On the one hand, this oversight wasn’t surprising, as both the stage and the audience were full of people who were involved, both inside and outside of government, in getting the U.S. into a war in Iraq, none of whom have ever shown much interest in grappling honestly with the war’s negative consequences. Indeed, as I wrote in a recent article in the Nation, the close identification with the Iraq debacle is among the reasons that the Project for the New American Century shut down and rebranded as the Foreign Policy Initiative in the first place.

On the other hand, it’s simply analytically irresponsible to not consider Iraq’s impact when wondering aloud why the U.S. military isn’t gunning for a war with Iran. So I asked the panel whether they felt that the Iraq war had limited the U.S.’s options in confronting Iran. Panelist Ray Takeyh of CFR kept his answer short: “Undeniably,” he said. Abrams and Pletka — both major supporters of war with Iraq, just as they are now for strikes on Iran — declined to answer.

So, even though the costs of the Iraq war continue to far outweigh the benefits, keeping us out of war with Iran — so far — would have to be included among the latter.

Related Posts

Media

DC Media Scoff At President Obama’s Substantive And Detailed Answer To Health Care Question

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 6, 2010 at 6:00 pm

anne-kornblutAt a town hall meeting in Charlotte, NC last Friday, a woman in the audience asked President Obama if it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package. The President responded by giving a fairly long , detailed, and substantive answer — spanning more than 15 minutes — explaining the necessity of reform and that the tax increases would only affect the rich. “Boy, that was a long answer,” Obama acknowledged. “I’m sorry…but I hope I answered her question.”

Unsurprisingly, many in the mainstream media focused on the style, rather than the substance, of Obama’s answer. Last night on Fox News, host Jim Angle called it “one of the longest answers in the annals of presidential town hall meetings,” seemingly mocking Obama’s “17 minute answer” that was “six full pages.” Charles Krauthammer piled on:

KRAUTHAMMER: It’s only nine times the length of the Gettysburg Address, and Lincoln was answering an easier question, the higher purpose of the union and soldiers who fell in battle. The president had an easy answer. He could have said I wanted to make history with health care and to do it I have to raise your taxes. … End of answer.

Obama’s answer made others in the DC media circuit a bit sleepy and seemingly annoyed, like the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut, who penned an entire article mocking Obama’s “doozy” of an answer:

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer — more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic. [...] Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned. But Obama wasn’t finished. He had a “final point,” before starting again with another list — of three points. [...] The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.

Liberal bloggers ridiculed Kornblut’s story:

What a snob. Makes you long for the non-elitist days, when a president would respond to Doris’ question with a quick slap on the ass and a winking, “you’ll be alright, gorgeous, I’ll get those taxes out of the way.”

“For the record,” the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen wrote, “I kind of liked the lengthy response, but I probably like in-depth discussions more than the typical political reporter.”

Perhaps all the misinformation that has been emanating from media outlets such as the Washington Post and Fox News on health care reform this past year is what required the President to make such a detailed response in order to set the record straight.

Climate Progress

Larry Summers and Carol Browner say Obama won’t budge on placing a price on global warming pollution

By Joe Romm on Apr 6, 2010 at 5:58 pm

Summers: Comprehensive bill “is an absolutely crucial priority for the president” in 2010

UPDATE:  Summers entire, amazing speech, “The Economic Case for Comprehensive Energy Reform,” is reposted below.

White House aides Larry Summers and Carol Browner insisted that the administration was willing to bend on several key issues, including the mechanism for pricing carbon and increased domestic energy exploration. But both said the president would not budge when it comes to placing a first-ever price on domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reported on the remarks from both the director of Obama’s National Economic Council and Obama’s chief climate aid.  In a forum sponsored by Google, Browner said of the bipartisan Senate effort of Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT):

Read more

Media

All The News That’s Fit…

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 6, 2010 at 5:28 pm

I was in airports on Thursday and Friday, so I spent more time than usual looking at magazine racks and was pretty stunned by the quantity of free media that Apple had managed to acquire for its iPad. Newsweek’s cover story was particularly striking:

newsweekapril5 1

David Freddoso observes that this very same issue had a full-page back-page ad for the iPad, which may explain a thing or two.

Update

I have to apologize. These ads were on different covers — I misread Freddoso’s post. Not sure there’s anything left to this argument once you have the dates right.

Climate Progress

Irony-gate 2: Modern day Tea Partiers outsource denial to Lord Monckton — a British peer!

By Joe Romm on Apr 6, 2010 at 5:11 pm

No, really you can’t make this stuff up — unless you are an anti-science disinformer like Monckton.  Straight from “FreedomWorks” Tabitha Hale:

As you have probably surmised, there will be a large round of Tea Parties coming up on April 15th. There will be large names, even larger crowds — and honestly, organizers would be unable to stop people from coming if they wanted to at this point. I will be speaking in Atlanta, and the FreedomWorks event in DC has a fantastic line-up including Lord Monckton, Andrew Breitbart, and Ron Paul.

twit3.gifThat’s right.  The original Tea Party was aimed at freeing us from the rule and influence of the British monarachy.  But the Tea Partiers — who are unburdened by both irony and historical knowledge — have asked a British peer, The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (TVMOB), to speak at two Tax Day Tea Parties!

[Please note that the picture on the right is not TVMOB nor do I think he would ever participate in this.]

For the record, of all the disinformers in the world, TVMOB is one of the most grotesque liars.  Rather than being given a platform, he should be widely condemned for his extremist hate speech:

Read more

Economy

44 Percent Of Unemployed Americans Have Been Jobless For Six Months Or Longer

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 6, 2010 at 5:00 pm

Last month, the U.S. economy gained 162,000 jobs, which was the largest gain in three years and a far cry from the 700,000 jobs a month that were being lost in the beginning of 2009. But still, the unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent and the underemployment rate actually ticked up to 16.9 percent. And as this new report from the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative shows, long-term unemployment is reaching scary new levels:

The federal government defines “long-term unemployment” as a jobless period of six months or longer. In March 2010, over 44 percent of unemployed Americans met or exceeded that standard — the highest rate since World War II. In contrast, during the severe recession of the early 1980s, the percentage of workers unemployed for six months or longer peaked at 26 percent in 1983. The high long-term unemployment rate represents the continuation of a decades long trend, one that has worsened after downturns but has persisted even during periods of growth.

6.5 million Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And this is a problem facing particularly older workers, with the rate for workers 55 and older almost double that of workers younger than 24.

Sadly, this epidemic of long-term unemployment coincides with the expiration of some tiers of extended unemployment benefits, courtesy of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Republican obstructionism. So, if nothing else, these numbers make the case for a more robust system of “triggers” for fiscal stabilizers like unemployment benefits, so the unemployed don’t get hurt by political gamesmanship.

“Relying on Congress to extend benefits episodically to the long-term unemployed is not a good policy solution. The United States is a large nation with a variety of different local labor markets, and Congress may not have the political will to act when only a few states are in dire straits,” wrote Jeffrey Wenger and Heather Boushey. “In contrast, an automatic system that works would help states over multiple ups and downs over time—and really help the country by not having lagging states dragging down the national economy.”

Then, of course, there’s the matter of getting the long-term unemployed back to work, particularly for workers who lost their jobs in industries that may be permanently resetting at a lower level. But there doesn’t seem to be the widespread will in Congress for taking the major steps necessary.

As Boushey noted, “the private sector employs fewer people today than it did at the end of 1998, but our economy has an additional 32 million people over the age of 16. This means that the recovery we are in now must be a strong one, since we have a lot to make up for.” In terms of both the current and future strength of the economy, Congress needs to step up, or we’ll be stuck in this slow job-creation slog for a long time.

Politics

Gibbs: Obama Would Agree It’s ‘Odd’ That The DOJ Cited Powell’s Old Views To Defend DADT In Court

By Amanda Terkel on Apr 6, 2010 at 4:50 pm

Late last month, the Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court in California defending the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military. One of the most controversial aspects of the DOJ’s brief was that it contained quotes supporting the ban from ret. Gen. Colin Powell — but it didn’t note that Powell has since disowned those statements and called for a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. A couple of examples of the language in the brief:

– General Colin Powell similarly testified that, “[t]o win wars, we create cohesive teams of warriors who will bond so tightly that they are prepared to go into battle and give their lives if necessary for the accomplishment of the mission and for the cohesion of the group and for their individual buddies.”

– General Powell testified that homosexual conduct in units “involves matters of privacy and human sexuality that, … if allowed to exist openly in the military, would affect the cohesion and well-being of the force.”

But in February, of course, Powell said that, “In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed.”

In today’s White House press briefing, The Advocate’s Washington correspondent Kerry Eleveld asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the DOJ’s brief. Instead of backing it, Gibbs said that he found it “odd” that officials included Powell’s old remarks, adding that President Obama would probably agree with his assessment:

ELEVELD: Is the President at all concerned that DOJ is a little insular or tone deaf on issues that are sort of politically sticky, especially those of interest to the LGBT community?

GIBBS: I will say this, obviously the President has enunciated his support for ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” rolling back — made a commitment to roll back DOMA in the campaign. Obviously, the Justice Department has — is charged with upholding the law as it exists, not as the President would like to see it. We have obviously taken steps on the front of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I think we’ve made a genuine amount of progress. I will say, was it odd that they included previous statements from General Colin Powell on a belief set that he no longer had? I don’t think the President would disagree with that.

Watch it:

Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin and Senior Fellow Nathaniel Frank also recently gave depositions in this case, Log Cabin v. United States, and are now claiming that the DOJ misrepresented their arguments about “whether privacy concerns for service members constituted a rational basis for the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993.”

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