The history of Washington is replete with insincere political hacks who flip-flop and give press-release-apologies when they’re wanted to fill a new power or political CYA position.

This job is WAAY too important for that political nonsense. Even without Hagel’s record of homophobia, someone like Joe Sestak is far more qualified for Defense (Naval Academy, Harvard, Admiral).

And the president ought to be reminded he’s been elected TWICE now– VERY solidly. Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes, and few doubt this president’s resolve to defend our country, as and when needed, as its well-proven Commander-In-Chief.

Obama has serious national defense chops. He does not need a Republican or former-Republican beard at DOD at all.

Do you think that every CEO of every corporation that has non-discrimation policies that protect their LGBT employees is not at all homophobic? Has every company that achieved a perfect score on the HRC Equality Index extricated every anti-gay bias or attitude from its leadership ranks? In 2002, only 13 businesses achieved a perfect score. Now there are 252. Do we celebrate where they are, or remind them of where they were? Did we ask them to apologize for their past ignorance before we bestowed accolades and rewarded them with our patronage?

There are so many people watching now for any sign of biased action from Hagel, that we are more assured of his working to prove his detractors wrong, rather than providing them fodder for proving them correct. Hagel didn’t equivocate with “I am fully supportive of ‘open service’ and committed to LGBT military families.” John McCain never uttered anything close to that in 2008 and got endorsed by the very people whose signature issue was DADT repeal and are now deriding Hagel.

So, if you have to choose between the President’s view of Hagel’s suitability to be Sec’y of Defense or that of LCR, the people who thought that a Romney presidency would be good for Gay Americans, or that John McCain would come around on DADT, is it even really a serious contest?

Sure Hagel’s remarks were waay back in 1998. But a nakedly self-serving White House PR/ press-release apology– just a few weeks ago– rightly came off as insincere to many of us.

No amount of clumsy hiney-covering by HRC and OutServe/SLDN makes it any better, BTW. Indeed, both organizations have lost credibility in this instance, too.

Wouldn’t it have been far smarter for the WH to engage Ambassador Hormel directly at the start of this tortuous ‘trial baloon’ … with a REAL personal and public apology from Senator Hagel?

How much better would it have been for both Senator Hagel’s and our president’s credibility to have Ambassador Hormel shaking hands with Hagel and personally endorsing him?

Fact is this WH PR bungling continues to be disturbingly indicative of a stiff-arm, almost dismissive stance we’ve seen against LGBT people, interests and issues post-November.

We need to keep drilling down past this new WH ‘spin’– and we need to keep demanding better of them.

What did Chuck Hagel ever do on behalf of LGBT residents of Omaha, Lincoln or Grand Island after his attack on our first openly gay ambassador? Was Hagel truly a Senator who cared about his LGBT Nebraskans, too?

Also– speaking of credibility– with the stroke of his pen, President Obama can, right now, end workplace anti-LGBT discrimination aided and abetted by the federal government he leads.

When will you end federal contractor discrimination against LGBTs, Mr. President?

It's not only about what he said many years ago, but that he has not come out for any specific or general commitment to equality for gay military families.

In general for gays to accept Hagel, he must say that he would like to see DOMA overturned at the Supreme Court.

But there are many ways a Secretary of Defense could help gay military families no matter how DOMA is decided and Hagel has not come out in favor of any of these.

Reports to the contrary, LGBT equality is not yet a done deal in the military. There is still the matter of partner benefits. There still remain a handful of regulations that could be revised independent of the Defense of Marriage act that could bring some equity of compensation and benefits to gay and lesbian servicemembers. but remain denied due only to Department of Defense foot-dragging:

Included in the discretionary benefits currently denied are spousal identication cards, cited in the Pentagon's own Working Group study as not requiring DOMA repeal to deliver.

I’m an openly bi man — who first came out of the closet as gay in 1978 and as bi in 1993 — whose own views on marriage equality have done a complete 180-degree turn in the last 14 years. As recently as 1999, I was strongly opposed to the idea of gay and lesbian couples getting married — but not for the same reason the Religious Right opposed it.

Back then, I took a “queer nationalist” position on the idea, denouncing it as a “sellout to the heterosexist patriarchy” and a “betrayal of what it means to be queer in a straight-dominated society.”

What changed my mind?

The sheer ferocity of the Religious Right’s crusade against it — a crusade that reminded me, as an African-American, of the even more ferocious opposition by white supremacists to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that struck down laws in 16 states that barred interracial couples — including my African-American mother and American Indian father — from marrying and refused recognition of such marriages performed in states where they were already legal.

That reminder prompted me to check myself. How could I — the son of interracial parents (who’s now in an interracial marriage of my own) — say “no” to gay and lesbian couples who love one another the same constitutionally protected right to marry that interracial, interfaith and binational couples have?

If I can change my views on marriage equality, why can’t Senator Hagel change his?