Discuss…

“Barney Frank: Obama Brief Wasn't That Bad”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/Fra...

…interesting statement from Barney Frank yesterday, which argues that the administration's defense of DOMA wasn't as full-throated as many read it to be:

When I was called by a newspaper reporter for reaction to the administration’s brief defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, I made the mistake of relying on other people’s oral descriptions to me of what had been in the brief, rather than reading it first. It is a lesson to me that I should not give in to press insistence that I comment before I have had a chance fully to inform myself on the subject at hand.

Now that I have read the brief, I believe that the administration made a conscientious and largely successful effort to avoid inappropriate rhetoric. There are some cases where I wish they had been more explicit in disavowing their view that certain arguments were correct, and to make it clear that they were talking not about their own views of these issues, but rather what was appropriate in a constitutional case with a rational basis standard — which is the one that now prevails in the federal courts, although I think it should be upgraded.

It was my position in that conversation with the reporter that the administration had no choice but to defend the constitutionality of the law. I think it is unwise for liberals like myself, who were consistently critical of President Bush’s refusal to abide by the law in cases where he disagreed with it to now object when President Obama refuses to follow the Bush example.

That is, he's noting that the administration was only saying a rational lawmaker could see same-sex marriage as a legal parallel to child marriage, say — not that the administration was actually making that claim, which is a real legal distinction.

That's unlikely to satisfy critics who would have liked to see Obama either refuse to defend the law or defend it far more half-heartedly, but Frank concludes: “After rereading this brief, I do not think that the Obama administration should be subject to harsh criticism in this instance.”

You can read the motion itself here.