When the Senate failed to move forward on a bill repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, one option for a President allegedly committed to getting rid of the law would be to stop the discharges. Helpfully, there was a court ruling finding the law discriminatory and unconstitutional, where the judge planned to file an injunction against further discharges of gay service members. The Justice Department didn’t have to appeal that ruling, and this entire business would take care of itself.

That didn’t happen.

Attorneys for the Obama administration objected Thursday to a proposed worldwide injunction being considered by a California federal judge that would halt the military’s ban on openly gay troops.

Calling the possible move “untenable,” Department of Justice attorneys filed their objections in U.S. District Court in Riverside.

They said Judge Virginia Phillips, who declared the policy unconstitutional earlier this month, would be overstepping her bounds if she tried to stop it in its tracks.

Instead, she should limit any injunction to the 19,000 members of the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay rights organization that filed the lawsuit to stop enforcement of the ban, the lawyers said.

The case has put the White House in the uncomfortable position of defending a policy President Obama has said he wants repealed.

Actions speak louder than words.

It sounds like a crazy idea, that two separate classes of gay service members should be created, one with protections to enter the military under the Constitution and one without, but if there ever was an argument for every gay and lesbian American to join the Log Cabin Republicans, the Obama Administration just made it. Maybe he’s just trying to aid their membership drive.

Robert Gibbs tried to pre-empt any suggestion that this backpedaled from the President’s commitment to repeal the policy by saying this makes it more crucial that Congress act. That sounds like “Congress, we demand that you stop this thing we’re doing before we do it again!”

Really, this is another example of the President trying to protect the powers of the executive branch, specifically:

“A court should not compel the executive to implement an immediate cessation of the 17-year-old policy without regard for any effect such an abrupt change might have on the military’s operations, particularly at a time when the military is engaged in combat operations and other demanding military activities around the globe,” federal attorneys said in their objection.

Yeah, so the court should care less about the military’s operations when it rules on the military’s violation of individual civil rights. And as a co-equal branch of government, the court can do a whole lot of compelling on the executive. This brief is almost sad in how nakedly power-aggrandizing it is.

The ruling on the injunction could come as early as today.