The White House, from Robert Gibbs to David Axelrod to President Obama himself, refuses to tell us whether they think Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is constitutional or unconstitutional. They claim that since the president is not on the Supreme Court, it’s not right for them to speculate. He’s had quite an unclear plan all along on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, if in fact one exists at all — and the LGBT community has become increasingly wary and angry.

Liberal bloggers held a sit down meeting with the president, and he again refused to answer on the constitutionality of the law, even when told it was a simple yes or no question. It turns out that the White House’s refusal to address the constitutionality of laws is a fairly new precedent. Way back in the prehistoric times of March of this year, the White House was fully engaged on answering constitutional questions about laws — specifically the health care law:

Q: Robert, two questions, one on health care and one on — a foreign policy question. What’s the White House’s reaction to the states that have threatened to sue over this legislation? Is that something that the President and the team are taking seriously?MR. GIBBS: I heard Nancy-Ann talk a little bit about this, this morning on television I think. My sense is that a lot of big pieces of legislation are challenged in some ways. We certainly have — you’ve seen the intent of some to do — to challenge this legislation on grounds we don’t think will be very successful.

Q You don’t think their suits will be very successful?

MR. GIBBS: We don’t.

Q Okay. And is there any kind of a plan or a reaction to deal with that in the coming –

MR. GIBBS: Well, I assume there will be many things that we will deal with in the coming weeks, months, and years ahead as health care reform is implemented. But I think that — you know, look, some of the states and some of the players might end up being kind of curious, but, again, I think there’s pretty long-standing precedent on the constitutionality of this.

Very interesting indeed. The White House, when promoting their new health care reforms, felt the need to assure everyone that in the current court cases that were pending in the lower courts, the government’s case was solid and the law was perfectly constitutional.

Indeed, the constitutionality is even addressed on another part of the White House web site:

Now that this preliminary stage has ended, the government fully expects to prevail on the merits.

Admittedly, that’s more subtle than Gibbs’ statement, but it means the same thing. The “merit” of the challenge is the claim of “unconstitutionality” made by the opposing side. The White House blog says that they expect to win on the constitutionality.

As if that’s not enough, one of the most recent outspoken advisors on gay issues, David Axelrod (after they asked Jarrett to avoid discussing gays and our lifestyle choices) has also chimed in on the constitutionality of health care reform. No kidding. I found his comment at the end of an ABC News piece on the constitutionality of the health care law:

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod dismissed the lawsuits, saying the Obama administration is very confident the health care bill “will withstand those legal challenges”.

Again, those legal challenges were on the constitutionality. Either the White House can comment on the constitutionality of legislation or it cannot. Pick one.

(Crossposted at my blog.)