Back in October 2006 when presidential hopeful John McCain was still pretending to be a moderate to appeal to the young ‘uns, he had this to say to students at Iowa State about the military’s longstanding Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy:

We have to have the most effective and professional military that we can possibly obtain.  I listen to people like General Colin Powell, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and literally every military leader that I know.  And they testified before Congress that they felt the “don‘t ask, don‘t tell” policy was the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves in the military … And I understand the opposition to it, and I‘ve had these debates and discussions, but the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.

Well, that day arrived yesterday, when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen called repealing DADT “the right thing to do.” So what is McCain’s current position on gays in the military? Not quite so moderate anymore:

“At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” he said bluntly, before describing it as “imperfect but effective.”

So much for chain of command.

If I may take a moment to grandstand, Sen. McCain doesn’t seem to appreciate that there are gays in the military whose “immense hardship” he can’t even imagine. Right now, all over the world, gay men and women are fighting to protect our country from inside a closet. And to date, I haven’t heard of a single tactical error committed because some guy was too distracted checking out his fellow soldier’s package.