Politico's Josh Gerstein has a long, thoughtful article on how the Obama administration just keeps insisting on promising the moon and then retreating to a graduate seminar the promisees only get to audit, and have to sit in the nosebleed seats to boot.
Gerstein's example is how the Obamanauts keep fumbling gay rights by making full-hearted promises to the rich, facetime types linked to HRC and other, self-appointed, national gay rights orgs, while then sending its hapless DOJ lawyers to court to pretend they work for George W. Bush and have to grind gay Americans down to a legal nub.
The President and his team are really stuck in a wringer these days. There's the California marriage case awaiting a decision. There's the two Massachusetts decisions this week overturning DOMA. There's a new lawsuit in California set to go to trial.
And the President's stuck. He personally disfavors marriage equality but wants some sort of equality. He wants to repeal DOMA and DADT but takes no serious action to do either. He pretzels himself making new rights for federal employees, who aren't most of the gay tribe.
It all really leaves me scratching my head when I look over to Savonarola, who has all but accused the President of acting gay on alternate Thursdays to make David Mixner and the Pope sad/angry/happy/sad/angry/outraged/how can you refer to gays except to call them "homosexuals" with air quotes?
As I predicted when Obama was running, gay rights is a can the Democrats can always find a way to kick down the road. There's a cynicism at work that should shame both parties....no, wait, we're talking American politics here.
Never mind.
Anyway, the two Big Parties have reached a happy equilibrium. The Republicans agree to keep the useful idiot closet cases on the Hill, the rich frat boy big contributor youngsters who hit the lesbian sex dance club in Hollywood, Arthur Finkelstein, and the GayPatriot/GOProud cases who are willing to out-Birch the Birchers.
The Democrats agree to take the rest of the gays, attend their dinners, pat them on the head, assure them they can always get someone appointed Third Deputy Secretary of the Convention Platform Committee on What to Do About Puerto Rico, and then do nothing because there's always another election around the corner.
It's kinda like how you can't be kinda pregnant. The President, so far, has proved to have overpromised a significant constituency. So far the "Just Stay Home" option looks pretty good for getting his attention again.
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