Time Magazine: Why Are Troops Even Being Surveyed on DADT?

Time Magazine ask a question that more in the mainstream media ought to be asking; While is the Pentagon surveying troops on repealing DADT when not such polls were done when the army was integrated and other major changes implemented. The defenders of the controversial survey claim that it is so that the military can have a sense of "buy in." Personally, I think the senior military brass is challenging civilian control - something for which they should be terminated (remember Douglas MacArthur) - and, worse yet, I fear setting the stage to kill repeal. And I believe Obama's involved in the whole orchestrated dog and pony show to appear to mollify gays even thorough he's going to show he's spineless again and going to allow DADT repeal to be killed. Here are some column highlights:
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When Harry Truman wanted to integrate blacks into the U.S. military in 1948, he simply ordered it done. When the Navy wanted women on ships beginning in 1978, it commanded its admirals to do so. When the Clinton Pentagon decided women should become fighter pilots, it issued orders telling the military to make it happen. For generations, the military mind-set has been, If we want you to have an opinion, we'll issue you one. So why is the Pentagon asking troops how they'll feel if forced to serve alongside openly gay comrades?
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"This is a very dangerous precedent," says Lawrence Korb, who ran the Pentagon's personnel office during the Reagan Administration. "It gives the troops the feeling that they have a veto over what the top people want."
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But even a top officer acknowledges some unease. "We've never done this," Admiral Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, said in February after Pentagon leaders endorsed ending "Don't ask, don't tell" and said they would survey the troops about it. "We've never assessed the force because it is not our practice to go within our military and poll our force to determine if they like the laws of the land or not.
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So why is it being done? Perhaps I am a pessimist, but I feel in my gut that it's part of cynical plan to kill repeal while certain politicians - think Obama - get away pretending to have supported repeal. I hope I'm wrong, but will not be at all surprised if I am not.