bliss

Bogota, Colombia: A reveller dressed as a bride at a gay pride parade [William Fernando Martinez/AP]

Life v Gibbs.

This is pieced together from a couple of places, part of it is a reporter, Yunji de Nies, at Political Punch, the Tapper ABC site… the second set of questioning, I don’t know which reporter it is… Pam of Pam’s House Blend had both sections of the Q & A at her site with no link or attribution, at all.  heh.

The bolding is from Pam’s site – and this questioning is the unknown  reporter:

Q    Robert, today the President is going to celebrate Gay Pride at the White House for the first time.  Even so, the gay community is somewhat divided over whether or not the President has done enough, the pace of change is enough.  What does the President intend to say today, and can you talk a little bit about his thinking about how much he has to mollify a community that’s been very supportive during the campaign?

MR. GIBBS:  I appreciate the opportunity to comment on mollifying a community, but that’s not the way the President looks at important issues.  I think if you go back and look at the campaign — either his campaign for the Senate or his campaign for the presidency — he takes stands that he believes are consistent with his values.

We didn’t play a lot of interest group-based politics in the presidential race, I think that was denoted by the fact that we didn’t get a lot of endorsements in the presidential race.

The President makes those decisions, again, based on his values.  I won’t get ahead of what he’s going to say later today, but he will, I think, address a number of issues and reaffirm the commitments that he’s made.

Yes, ma’am.

Q    Following on that, the President has talked about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and also the Defense of Marriage Act.  So I’m wondering if you can tell me what specific steps has he taken to do this?  What is his timeline for doing it?  And also —

MR. GIBBS:  I think we got a fairly similar question a minute ago, but I’ll try to —

Q    — there’s legislation apparently moving through House to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I think it’s H.R. 1283, and he hasn’t endorsed it.  Why not?

MR. GIBBS:  I can certainly talk to legislative affairs about what that piece of legislation would do.  As I said earlier, the President has been involved in, personally, meetings on this topic with stakeholders, including those at the Pentagon.

Q    What about members of Congress?

MR. GIBBS:  I don’t know if he’s met specifically with members of Congress on that. I know that — I can try to get a list, I know that staff has worked here on the issue.  It’s a commitment that he intends to keep.

Q    Can you talk a little bit more about the meetings that he’s had, what —

MR. GIBBS:  No.

Q    — and how recent has he been in these meetings?

MR. GIBBS:  Since January 20.

I read somewhere or other that as the attendees arrived for the afternoon reception at the WH, ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” was playing.  hmmm.

From the Wapo on today’s reception …

His comments were received enthusiastically by some attendees. “This is so incredibly historic and symbolic,” Mitchell Gold, a gay-rights activist from North Carolina, said after leaving the White House. “I don’t think for a minute that we can forget that under the Bush administration we didn’t see that.”

Whew!  Poor [shorter] Mitchell:  “Obama is Better than Bush”  OIBTB.  Ok!  Don’t be bothering to be an activist for any rights I might need… 😆

And, from de Nies second question to the WH press flack:

de Nies :  Can I ask one more question quickly?

GIBBS:  Sure.

de Nies :  On sort of a D.C. issue — and that is:  What hasn’t the president changed his license plate on the presidential limousine? Is he planning to change them for the “taxation without representation” plates?

GIBBS:  I think rather than change the logo around the license plate, the president is committed instead to changing the status of the District of Columbia.

de Nies :  But that is a symbol, though, that a lot of people look at as…

GIBBS:  Right.  I guess I would ask you to ask people in Washington whether they’d like to have that status changed, or that symbolism screwed onto the back of a limousine?

Stuff ’em with symbolism.  And the historicity — of it all.

Of course the license plate frame signalling DC’s ongoing colonial status was a cowardly bullshitty thing Clinton did, just in the last two weeks of his final term.  Big Guy.  So courageous.