Topic: WorldNetDaily
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips writes in a Sept. 13 WorldNetDaily column about a federal district judge overturning the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law against gays in the military:
When someone files a suit to declare a law unconstitutional, the attorney general and the Department of Justice are obligated under law to defend it. While they are duty-bound to defend the law, they do not have to defend it well. The Obama regime knows this.
As the case went to trial, DOJ called no witnesses. The only evidence it offered was the legislative record from Congress.
When judges try a case, their rulings are limited to the evidence that is in front of them. In this case, DOJ offered no real evidence to support DADT. Despite the fact that the judge was a Clinton appointee, she really had no choice in her ruling.
Imagine a baseball game where a team puts its batters up to the plate. The players stand there, but they absolutely refuse to swing at the ball.
That is exactly what the Obama Justice Department did. DOJ's actions were so unusual, the judge even commented on it in her ruling.
Phillips is misleading about the DOJ's efforts in the case. As Media Matters has noted, the case was filed in 2004, and the Obama DOJ has handled for less than two years, so it appears that the legal strategy in the case may have been decided under the Bush administration. Further, the Obama DOJ did much more that just "the legislative record from Congress," as Phillips claims; it filed numerous motions and hundreds of pages of legal briefs, while claiming that the court should consider only "the statute itself and the bare legislative history."
Phillips baselessly asserts that the legal strategy in the case was part of the Obama administration having "concocted a plan to repeal DADT without going through Congress," even though the case was under the jurisdiction of the Bush DOJ for four years. Nevertheless, he adds that "this is yet another example of what liberal elites are capable of when they're granted unchecked power."
