So today, AmericaBlog Gay reported:
''Joe [Sudbay] and I were just informed that the White House congressional liaison office is telling US House members not to include the repeal of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' in the Defense Authorization bill, and not to have a vote on DADT on the House floor, this year.''Then, the frenzy started! From Twitter to Blogs, this (unproven) info ran frakking wild. Folks were already blaming Obama and my mama for this. In fact, there were tweets all about how 'Obama lied' 'Barney betrayed us'
I would say within an hour, folks were taking this info very seriously, even though there was NO ASS PROOF.
Now, most of y'all know me, I usually wait to hear it from Swift Wind's (horse's) mouth before I hold it as truth and it's a good thing I did, because Chris Geidner from Law Dork/MetroWeekly got the real info:
A White House official responded this afternoon via email, writing, ''These rumors are blatantly false. The President has been clear in his desire to see Congress repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the Department of Defense is already moving forward with its own review.''
In an explicit denial of the claims, the official wrote, ''The Office of Legislative Affairs continues to engage lawmakers, and at no time has the White House asked any Member to take this issue off the table.''
A spokesman for Frank, who has been critical of the lack of action from the White House on DADT repeal in recent weeks, said of the report, ''We have heard no word of that whatsoever. From what I can tell you, that's just wrong.''
Once again, certain LGBT bloggers jumped the gun, but I expected that. However, my heartache comes from the many of LGBT peeps that took this mess verbatim. It's really sad to see how easily our community can get whipped into butter. I hope that in the future, we can wait for the true source before overreacting.
UPDATE: AmericaBlog claims they are right!
"If the White House thinks it's a lie to say that they're not on board, then there's a really easy solution. Get a senior White House official, on the record, by name, to go public and tell us that President Obama wants to have the repeal legislation included in the Department of Defense authorization so that DADT is repealed this year. And, have Obama send that message to the Hill through his budget requests. Then, we'll believe it. Otherwise, we're sticking with our sources who have been consistently more reliable on LGBT issues than this White House or any of their apologists."
Okay, and I hope John and Joe do the same, by revealing their anonymous source. Because for all we know, Cooky the Clown could have told them a false statement.
4 comments:
It's better to have this kind of reaction to a false rumor than to have no reaction at all. Imagine if it was true and our community did nothing.
It seems to me there is a significant contingent of LGBTs that are just looking for a reason to hate the president (I'm not going to elaborate here, but I've been getting this hunch on it for awhile). Also the falsehoods that are so easily spread across the internet is tale-telling of the group-think mindset of so many people especially those within the LGBT fold. In other words, I think it well beyond time that people would stop being so lazy and letting others tell them the 411 and take a wait-and-see stance before casting judgment on this administration. This is exactly how falsehoods spread rampant...
V, I pity anyone who doesn't cross reference or look for sources, just to be at the front of the info wave. Spreading rumor is just as bad as lying. I'm pretty sure this is why blogger information doesn't instill confidence or feelings of credibility with many people, and that really is a shame.
This is one of the problems with the rise of the 'new' media, where facts are not always checked before they hit the rumor mill.
I think a lot of people jumped on it, because there has been growing suspicion of how much of an ally Obama will be.
This kind of news and rumor isn't good for us, because we very likely will run into the boy who cried wolf too much scenario.
Glad, the WH confirmed it was a false though.
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