When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he would not reappoint Gen. Peter Pace to serve a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the reasoning behind the decision was relatively clear:
General Pace’s reputation has nevertheless become intertwined with the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the heavy tolls that the subsequent counter-insurgency fights have inflicted on the United States military. He has been criticized by some senior officers who saw him as too deferential to civilian leadership, in particular former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and too inattentive to the impact of prolonged war-fighting on the Army, Marines and their National Guard and Reserve elements.
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The defense secretary, though, said his conversations with senior lawmakers of both parties had led him to conclude that “the focus of his confirmation process would have been on the past, rather than the future” and “that there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious.”
A confirmation debate over the Bush administration’s handling of war in Iraq and the role Pace played in the debacle would undoubtedly have been “contentious” and so the administration decided that it would be easier to just replace Pace than to go through with such hearings.
Case closed? Not if your job requires that you have an almost single-minded dedication to uncovering evidence of nefarious homosexual plottings and maneuverings regarding the military:
"General Pace made statements that were opposed by the homosexual activist community, and that issue is why the administration chose not to fight for his reconfirmation," says [Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness]. "The administration chose to switch rather than fight -- and in this case, I think that is mistaken."
Three months ago, Pace stated that he supported the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy because “homosexual acts between individuals are immoral.” According to Donnelly, it was because of this that the Bush administration is now attempting to appease gay activists by sacrificing Pace in the middle of the war he has overseen for the last two years.
That makes sense, because if there is one thing the Bush administration is constantly trying to avoid, it’s angering gay activists by nominating people who exhibit an open hostility to homosexuals:
President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire from gay-rights groups for, among other things, voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church and writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.
Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to gay-rights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be "cured."
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As president of the Methodist Church's national Judicial Council, Holsinger voted last year to support a pastor who blocked a gay man from joining a congregation. In 2004, he voted to expel a lesbian from the clergy. The majority of the panel voted to keep the lesbian associate pastor in place, citing questions about whether she had openly declared her homosexuality, but Holsinger dissented.
Sixteen years ago, he wrote a paper for the church in which he likened the reproductive organs to male and female "pipe fittings" and argued that homosexuality is therefore biologically unnatural.
"When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur," Holsinger wrote, citing studies showing higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases among gay men and the risk of injury from anal sex.
