tell, defense secretary gates and the pentagon brass are making it more difficult to discharge gay service members by raising the level of approval needed. still there are many who warn military uniform who do not believe in changing the policy, with u.s. troops fighting two wars. i am concerned that president obama taking more in consideration, that the left base that got him in office than the men and women putting their lives on the line every day overseas. some say at best don t ask, don t tell is distraction in the election where the economy is the central issue. at worst, it could cause support from a critical constituencies in the time days of a difficult mid-term election. bret? mike emanuel live on the north lawn. thank you. 23 of 50 states and the district of columbia report drops in their up employment rate last month. labor department says joblessness rose in 11 states and unchanged in 16 others. stocks were mixed.
thrown in the book made it worse and general jones said the guy who is going to take the job, you have not been to iraq or afghanistan and you have for respect from the military, defense secretary gates was quoted saying he would be a disaster if he replaced jones, and aides reached out today to say that was a dated character saights and they have worked through the issues and things are fine. here is defense secretary gates. i have thoroughly enjoyed working with general jones. and i have and have had a very productive and very good working relationship with him, contrary to what you may have read. and i look forward to continue working with him. he was expected to leave after
primary concern with the appeal is the potential disruption to cohesion that may be caused by dig can t change in period of extended combat operations. despite that defense secretary gates and others, admiral mullen said to study this, get a study in december, we were for it. there is still a lot of pushback at pentagon. a lot of splits on this. what is important about the vote here is it was not a vote on substance. not as if the administration calculated incorrectly. it didn t want a bill. it wanted an issue. that is why the three items authorizing defense, the gay rights issue and the dream act. on immigration. the reason that they oppose it not because they oppose all the elements but they want a vote on each separately. susan collins opposed it.
primary concern with the appeal is the potential disruption to cohesion that may be caused by dig can t change in period of extended combat operations. despite that defense secretary gates and others, admiral mullen said to study this, get a study in december, we were for it. there is still a lot of pushback at pentagon. a lot of splits on this. what is important about the vote here is it was not a vote on substance. not as if the administration calculated incorrectly. it didn t want a bill. it wanted an issue. that is why the three items authorizing defense, the gay rights issue and the dream act. on immigration. the reason that they oppose it not because they oppose all the elements but they want a vote on each separately.
issues and do a week on foreign policy and a week on this and that and they are finding they have to remake the whole agenda, late in the game, basically, the president is calling an audible on the economy and says, okay. everything is about the economy. we will talk about the war in arc and afghanistan and that is about the economy iraq and afghanistan and that is about the economy, too, and it is i think a reference and clear point they are very, very concerned. chris: steve, there are the continuing mixed messages about afghanistan and the president said, the pace of withdrawals will be based on conditions on the ground. but, then, almost the next sentence, he said this: this transition will begin because open ended war serves neither our interest and the afghan people s and the third hand, you have defense secretary gates in the last couple of days saying the u.s. combat role in afghanistan will continue, 2-3 more years and what is the bottom line. this is the problem. to go