Don't Ask, Do Comment

“Don’t Ask”, a commentary written by Peter Catapano, talks about presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s comment at the Republican debate in Orlando on the 22^nd of September, 2011.  Santorum stated, “I would — I would just say that, going forward, we would — we would reinstitute that policy, if Rick Santorum was president, period.”  He is talking about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gay men and women in the military that was recently repealed.  Author Peter Catapano refers to Santorum’s comment as a “time-twisting formulation.”  He is ridiculing Santorum’s comment by saying that having the policy reinstituted would be like going backwards in time.  He is also feeding on Santorum’s later statement, “we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past.”
Catapano’s article is most likely directed towards a more liberal or democratic audience as his views seem to be more for gay rights and against Santorum’s take on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  His argument indicates that Santorum makes no sense and that proposing to reinstitute the policy is ridiculous.  He backs up his argument by placing a video clip of the debate in the article and also writing out what was said in the video clip directly under the video.  This allows the readers to reflect on exactly what he saw and not what he may have seen.  Catapano also takes various comments directly from other bloggers, commentaries, and editorials and places them into his article to show his audience others’ opinions of Santorum’s comments.  All the comments from outside sources reflected how Santorum’s words gave the GOP a bad name.  Catapano’s argument was strongly reinforced by a comment from a conservative stating, “I’m watching my first GOP debate…and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!”  Catapano is definitely expressing he is not happy with Santorum’s comments and I have to agree with him.  To me, to reinstitute the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy would be like reinstituting the policy stating only men could vote.  A time machine would definitely need to be in place to carry out Santorum’s vision.