No, but it means in this case, because the law 1) violated the Constitution and 2) clearly was detrimental to the armed forces (with numerous Arabic speaking specialists and others with vital skills dismissed during a time of war), and because 3) the President takes an oath to defend the Constitution and the United States, that it was his Constitutional responsibility and within his rights to, with an executive order, order his armed forces to ignore the discriminatory legislation while he went about the process of repealing it.

And because I disagree with you on this point doesn’t mean I don’t understand basic civics. I simply interpret them differently (and in line with many informed commentators on this subject).

I agree that this is true, but did you know that there is a systm? If you think a law violates guaranteed freedom, you don’t actually get to ignore it.

Basic civics.

Black guy out jogging. Connect the dots. Really.

Obama should also order a review and reformulation of the existing discriminatory regulations which still prevent transgender people from serving

Good idea.

One of the benefits of an authoritarian institution like the army is that the person at the top can make unilateral decisions.

Nuh uh. The benefit of having the military headed by a civilian is that at some level the military has to obey the law, which in turn is passed by the congress and can not be unilaterally abrogated by the president unless directed to do so by a court, after proper challenges have been made.

Obama’s lack of moral courage and spineless political calculation is to blame for this – not any democratic principle.

I’m not sure what you mean by democratic principle. But what prevails here is the law.

It sucks that it took this long, but by waiting, we did achieve an ending that is much more definitive than it would have been if DADT had been wiped out by executive order. That is a strictly political calculation, but it’s one worth considering.