Newt Gingrich, Republican presidential
candidate, has accused President Obama of displaying “anti-military
prejudice.”
During a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa, a
recently released from active duty soldier stated that the September
20 lifting of the policy that banned gay and bisexual troops from
serving openly, known as “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” will create a
“corrosive effect on unit cohesion,” then asked, “Can that
genie be put back in the bottle?”
“You can certainly reverse the
president's position on social engineering,” Gingrich answered.
“I was underwhelmed when [Secretary
of Defense] Leon Panetta proudly announced that 97 percent of the
troops have now gone through sensitivity training. Somehow, that
wasn't why I thought we recruited people to be on active duty,” he
said.
“You have to start with the idea that
this is an administration of extraordinary anti-military prejudice,
which just hides it, okay? I mean, this president is not a
commander-in-chief in any normal sense, he's a politician-in-chief,”
he added. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
(Related: Newt
Gingrich calls gay marriage a “temporary aberration.”)