Rep Ackerman: Pentagon More Afraid of Gay People Than Terrorists

Rep. Gary Ackerman took on Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice yesterday during her testimony while discussing the State Department’s 2008 budget.

During the discussion, Rice claimed the State Department "repeatedly emphasized the importance of recruiting qualified language experts to work in the agency.” Ackerman in response brought up the 322+ language specialists with "'some skills in an important foreign language such as Arabic, Farsi and Korean' had been discharged from the military since the ban’s inception in 1993."

Ackerman then said the Pentagon “'seems more afraid of gay people than they are [of] terrorists,' and that if the terrorists were smart, 'they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.'”

Ackerman is one of the first Congressmen to call the Administration and the Pentagon out on this appalling decision-making, and did so with great wit. We need more Congressmen like Ackerman! (H/T to ThinkProgress - who also has the video of the exchance)