"Don't Ask Don't Tell" vs. Winning The War

I can't say enough good things about Richard Cohen's op-ed from yesterday. There are clearly quite a few folks, many of them in the Bush administration, for whom barring gays from military service is a higher priority than national security. To fire Arabic and Farsi experts for being gay at a time when we have a shortage of both, apart from being despicable bigotry, is criminally negligent. Cohen's money quote (among several contenders):

I sit in uncomprehending awe of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. I was a military man myself, if basic and advanced training in the combat engineers count for anything, and therefore I lived in barracks with gays. That's a statistical certainty. Later in life I belonged to several health clubs where, statistics aside, I damn well knew that many of the members were gay. In all that time, I had not a single uncomfortable moment. This is not something that, for instance, women at West Point and the Air Force Academy could say. In both military institutions, women have been molested and even raped. Yet no one suggests getting rid of women . . . or men -- just making the system work. This should be the rule with heterosexuals and homosexuals as well.

Funny how those of us straights who actually know gays can keep from getting hysterical and paranoid when the issue comes up.