Gay Vets, Jarrod Chlapowski and Alex Nicholson had a run in with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel:
Nicholson talked to Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, and pressed him on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Emanuel admitted that there is a thirty to forty percent chance that it will happen this year. Chlapowski took this to mean that it will likely not pass this year.
They then talked to Senator Scott “Mr. 41″ Brown about trying to force repeal and tried to get him on record as supporting repeal. Senator Brown was not willing to do so as of this moment, though he was fascinated by the fact that both Chlapowski and Nicholson are veterans. Despite that, Chlapowski definitely believes that it was productive.
Perhaps, had Get Equal decided to go in for the reception last night, they could have made the news big time by getting loud and maybe even chaining themselves to Rahm Emanuel. Instead, they declined, and Chlapowski and Nicholson went instead and engaged in what John Avarosis has described as “HRC’s half-pregnant activism.” In this case, the HRC’s Chlapowski was the one who got into the event and not the more vocal activists.
Interesting. I think last night would have been better. Today's event was small.
UPDATE
the source LezGetsReal posted some new info regarding their post
This is an executive editor’s note…. Our original references to Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Chlapowski “crashing” this event have now been termed “not accurate” by our sources… Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Chlapowski did not attempt to get into the White House Correspondents Dinner proper, but did attend ancillary “public” receptions at the Washington Hilton before the event.
Apparently however, we upset Mr. Nicholson in even posting this story because he feels we broke a confidence in posting this news. For that were are very sorry.
It was never our intent to upset anyone, except for maybe Mr. Obama and those folks over at the Pentagon and in the White house who promise change, then call all of our efforts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “just more noise from the village people” … and send out letters saying “sorry about your luck… but we have an election coming up.”
It has also long been the editorial opinion of this site… based on very good information… that several of the recent radical protests against DADT have done far more damage then good for our cause and the recent push back we’re seeing from the Pentagon and the White House is a direct result of those actions, so we do feel that in posting this story, we were trying to show people out there that the hell raisers in this movement are not the only ones trying to deliver this message, and that we don’t have to club people over the head or chain ourselves to the White House fence in order get attention while sending the message DADT is wrong to the people who count.
We truly think Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Chlapowski showed a great deal of intuitive in seeing an opportunity to press the cause for the repeal of DADT and in seizing that opportunity… We applaud them both for going to these receptions to deliver the message for all of us, even if they are not happy with us for reporting them doing it…. We think it still a very courageous act and as such very worthy of reporting.
source
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