The News is Making Me Crazy This Morning

so if I post at all today, it will be something that's not about politics.

Except:

I do want to comment on this.



POWELL: My position has been, it has been 17 years since we put that policy in place. Lots of things have happened. Attitudes have changed within our society. But i always believe, as I believed in 1993, that we have to take into account the views of our military leaders who are responsible for the well-being of the armed forces.

KING: So you support the McCain’s view?

POWELL: Yes. But, you know, our military leaders have now spoken. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, there is some, some difference of opinion among the chiefs that will have to be resolved. But I wish that we would just let that study be finished, let it be published and let everybody read it and not leak parts of it. And so I share Senator McCain’s view that we ought to let the process unfold and not try to intercept it with court rulings or with people trying to get a vote out of the Congress when the Congress is not ready to vote on it.

First point, we should listen to the best advice our military leaders have to offer. I will even given them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're not blinded by their own prejudices. From this vantage, that's a big assumption, but. . . .

However, I'm real tired of this "process" mantra, especially as it applies to a body -- the Senate -- that has become all about process at the expense of substance, if any of them even know what substance is any more. Can someone explain why, when we have a policy opposed by clear majorities across all demographics, a policy that is demonstrably harming our national security, and a policy that 22 studies to date, as well as the experience of 26 other countries, show that no one will miss for a second, we have to fumble around with this "process" that is no more than an attempt to delay and, hopefully, scuttle repeal?

It would be really nice if we had someone in the government who knew how to make things happen.