Segregation Nation

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the folks in charge of the White House message shop suck.  Prima facie evidence of this:  the fact that the Pentagon is openly and publicly considering a separate but equal policy for gays and lesbians in the military, and the fact that a weekend later the White House still hasn't figured out that an African-American president signing off on a Pentagon policy of discrimination will end Obama's political career. John Aravosis:

The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that it is considering segregating gay troops, specifically with regards to creating separate showers and/or barracks for straight and gay troops.

Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld just transcribed the following quote from Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell at Friday's briefing about the new "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" survey:

"We think it would be irresponsible to conduct a survey that didn’t try to address these types of things. Because when DADT is repealed, we will have to determine if there are any challenges in those particular areas, any adjustments that need to be made in terms of how we educate the force to handle those situations, or perhaps even facility adjustments that need to be made to deal with those scenarios."

Segregation, folks. Separate but equal. In the year 2010. And from a black president, no less.

Hello?  White House messaging shop?  Why isn't the immediate response from the White House on this that a policy of separate but equal will not be tolerated in the military under any circumstances?  This should be an absolute no-brainer here, guys...and the White House seems to be content on letting the Pentagon consider this path.  Surely they have talked to the White house about this "facility adjustment" stupidity.  Somebody in the White house knows about this, and there hasn't been a command decision of "hell no" on this from the top?

Exactly what is President Obama waiting for here?

What part of "game over" do you guys not get up there?  Maybe the First Read guys are right:

Turning our attention away from the midterms and to the Obama White House, we’ve come to this conclusion: This White House is simply not good at handling communication and politics. The legislative achievements are there. So is the individual outreach. But what's missing is a coherent message. Whether dealing with the media, the business community, Republicans, or Congress, this White House hasn’t gotten its message across. (Just check out what Dem Gov. Chris Gregoire said of the White House’s communication on immigration: “They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border,” Ms. Gregoire said... “And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’”) Why is this surprising? The last thing so many of us thought during the presidential campaign was that these guys would have difficulties controlling the message and managing their constituents. Simply put, Washington runs this White House right now; the White House doesn't run Washington.

And in this case, the Pentagon part of Washington is running the White House on this, and they're about to run them out of Washington for good.  This isn't a simple oversight, guys.  This is a Class Omega Screwup Of Massive Proportions, and you had better clamp down on this and show some resolve, or you will pay for it at the polls with lots of Americans.

Oh yes...and it's the right thing to do.  Separate facilities my ass.  Not in my America.