Palin’s retweet on ‘don’t ask’ raises questions

By The Associated Press
01.05.2011 11:00am EST

(Anchorage, Alaska) Online pundits are trying to interpret Sarah Palin’s stance on “don’t ask, don’t tell” after she echoed an Internet post by a conservative lesbian commentator who slammed the opposition to the policy’s repeal.

Tammy Bruce wrote Monday on Twitter that “this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already – the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed.”

Palin’s retweet of the post raised questions about her own stance on the military’s policy, which was repealed by Congress late last year. The former 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee hasn’t spoken about the policy except to say last February that she was surprised at President Barack Obama’s support for a repeal because it was not a priority at the time.

Palin representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday, but Politico said the retweet is a hint that Palin supports the repeal. Gawker said Palin is not “in the context of her party, rabidly homophobic,” then wondered if perhaps she didn’t understand the tweet or pushed the wrong button.

And the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart said Palin might really support the repeal, but he added “it’s easy to support something that has already happened and costs you little to speak about.” Capehart noted, however, that Palin was silent in November after her 16-year-old daughter Willow used a gay slur against a Facebook user who criticized her mother’s documentary series “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”

Bruce also tweeted Monday she’s been focused on economic issues and was being quiet about “don’t ask, don’t tell” because “that’s not our most important issue.”

On her website, she said the tweets were prompted by recently publicized videos made by Navy Capt. Owen Honors that included gay slurs and homoerotic shower scenes. The videos had been shown aboard the USS Enterprise several years ago, when Honors was the aircraft carrier’s second-in-command.

Honors was removed Tuesday as commander of the Enterprise in what the Navy called a “profound lack of good judgment and professionalism.”

“At the very least I do think it’s fair to say anyone, regardless of their position on DADT, would indeed find the situation on the Enterprise rankly hypocritical,” Bruce wrote. “My tweet was also a condemnation of DADT as an attempt to continue to marginalize gays and lesbians in the military and beyond.”

Bruce said she was getting numerous e-mails asking her to interpret the meaning of Palin’s retweet. She said she hadn’t spoken with Palin about the issue but has met her and spoken with her on a few occasions.

The retweet by a potential 2012 presidential contender was a condemnation of the “social ostracizing” of gay people, as far as Bruce is concerned.

“Some have suggested this ‘completely changes the 2012 election,’” Bruce wrote. “Not really – perhaps for some who believed the (lame stream media) and Gay Gestapo lie that Sarah Palin was somehow a bigot or homophobe, I hope this does cause some to take a second look at Palin, away from the left’s predictable ‘She’s a Hater!!’ meme.”

Bruce’s website describes her as a radio talk show host, New York Times best-selling author, blogger, Fox News political contributor and contributor at The Guardian newspaper.