A bit vague.

The Obama administration reiterated its support Monday for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” law and policy as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) worked to strip language repealing the ban from the annual defense authorization bill.

“The White House opposes any effort to strip ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ from the National Defense Authorization Act,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said.

Opposes to the extent of… what? Does that mean the President would veto the defense bill if it were changed in this way? Or would he sigh heavily at the signing ceremony?

The President actually has an out here. His advisers have already suggested he veto the defense bill if it includes the second engine for the F-35. That’s in the House version of the bill but not the Senate version. (Yes, there would need to be a conference committee or some kind of reconciling of the bills, it’s not as simple as Senate passage.) The President could say, if DADT repeal were stripped, “I would veto both versions of this bill in its current form,” and everyone could read into what they want from that statement. Isn’t that how he likes to operate?

Harry Reid spokesman Jim Manley weighed in on this last night as well.

“Like Defense Secretary Gates, Senator Reid strongly supports the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to help strengthen our volunteer force and is continuing to work toward passing the repeal this year. He, of course, can’t do it alone. The Senator needs Republicans to at least agree to have a debate on this issue — a debate he firmly believes the Senate should have. It’s unfortunate that Senator McCain — who previously expressed support for the repeal of this law — and other Senate Republicans, are ignoring the advice of our military leaders to reverse this discriminatory policy that not only harms our men and women in uniform, but also our national security.”

I assume we’ll hear a lot from Republicans about Marine Commandant James Amos, who expressed opposition to the repeal yesterday. They’ll make an argument about the “commanders in the field” rejecting the policy change, adding a plural “S” even though the Defense Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the other armed service branches, the majority of the troops according to preliminary results of the Pentagon survey, and 70% of the American people including a majority of Republicans all disagree with them.

I think it’s cold comfort to the LGBT community, as well as bad taste, to tell them who to blame. The fact is that sanctioned discrimination still exists in our armed forces, and everyone seems too damn content to make something change on it.