One step closer to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

President Obama's nominee to the post of Secretary of the Army, introduced Tuesday, is John McHugh. He may be a Republican, which obviously would mean I'm predisposed to watch him with a closely critical eye, and while he does have absurdly high approval ratings from organizations such as the Christian Coalition (somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%, last I checked), he does have one thing I can't really fault him for: he's as adamant as Obama in believing that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has no place in the army and ought to be repealed quite soon.

(Seriously, not to be snarky, but a Republican who openly advocates removing DADT from the army? That's got to be a first.)

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of the Army, Republican representative John McHugh, agrees with the president that "don't ask, don't tell" should be changed.

"I think it's obvious from those statements and other statements that Congressman McHugh has made that he and the president are in agreement on changing the policy they both don't think is working for this country right now," Gibbs said in response to a question from The Advocate about the congressman's past remarks. "It's a priority of the president's and I think, for any number of reasons, we have a nominee that we hope will be confirmed quickly and will have -- ah, based on his background and experience -- will help to improve the lives of the Army."

Obama may be taking a little long to reverse some of Bush's policies, such as the States Secrets and other hallmarks of the failed Bush administration, but this is one thing he needs to take his time with to calculate his moves in advance. You don't just reverse a policy that affects so much and is so deeply ingrained without consequences, so he needs to make sure the only results he gets are the good ones. But at least it's moving forwards.