Maddow: "What's the deal with DADT now?" (with video)

Maddow blog, with video (01:20):

Sometimes you just need to understand what in the heck is going on. The Obama administration says it wants to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and yet yesterday it began the process of appealing a federal district court ruling that it's unconstitutional. One reading of this is that the Obama administration lacks the courage of its convictions -- that it keeps saying it will end the ban on out gays in the military but won't do anything about it.

Last night Walter Dellinger, former solicitor general under President Clinton, provided another take on why President Obama would appeal a ruling that you'd expect him to like. It's about the big picture, Dellinger said:

I think the government really has no choice but to appeal the case because we don't want a system where a single federal judge can invalidate an act of Congress and the president simply say, well, that's it, we're not going to seek to appeal that. MORE...