you sound very frustrated. amanda, let me ask you, what s the political calculation here? what s this mean for the president? i think president obama is trying to have it both ways. that s what s frustrating people so much. on same-sex marriage he s now to the right of people like kel mehlman, former head of the rnc and laurp rah bush. he has had the opportunity with cases like proposition 8 to say, look, i said i wasn t for same-sex marriage, but now i am. politically i think he s trying to have it both ways. trying to appease people maybe in the military or conservatives who are nervous about repealing don t ask don t tell and trying to reassure progressives, but i think the progressives are getting frustrated. it seems like these are in the news a lot, especially the president s senior advisor valerie jarrett who was talking about the rutgers student. she had to apologize for saying she thought this gay rutgers student who committed suicide had made a lifestyle choice.
what s going on at the white house? there s a bind he s put himself into where there s so much fear of a backlash that you take these positions, whether it s on don t ask don t tell or gay marriage, where you re trying to avoid a backlash you think is out there for the right. you see carl paladino in new york this week. he had the sort of inflammatory anti-gay comments. when he was called on it, what was his defense? his defense was if you look at it my position is the same as the president of the united states. he s right. paladino and obama are identical. what he s done by forging this position in a way is give cover to people like carl paladino to say the things they say and say, you know what? my opinion isn t really different than barack obama s. what he s chosen to do is ignore the courts of the united states. we had a decision in california on marriage. we ve had a decision in california on don t ask don t tell. he s chosen instead to choose some sort of crazy process that i
federal judge to block this week s lower court ruling that tossed out don t ask don t tell. instead he says congress needs to end the 17-year-old policy. while all the legal wrangling is taking place, for the moment at least the military says it will comply with the judge s ruling. nbc s jim michael shef ski is live at the pentagon. on a practical level, pentagon legal officials say, look, the judge has issued this injunction. so they have toob bide by that temporarily. they re seeking a stay in that injunction. but in the meantime, the u.s. military services have been instructed not to enforce don t ask don t tell against any gay or lesbian service members until such time as judge virginia phillips out there in california either rules on the stay or a higher court perhaps could
community and don t ask don t tell. is he trying to have it both ways? so much more than how long is the ship and what it s powered by and how much technology it has. it s called 100,000 tons of american diplomacy. our own colonel jack jacobs gives us a very cool inside look at a fighter power at sea, a brand-spanking-new nuclear power aircraft carrier. you won t believe the size of this baby. powered by how much technology it has [ animals calling ] [ pop ]