Today Pacifica Reporter John Rush interviews David Mixner, an openly gay former advisor in the Clinton administration. Mixner, who has known Clinton for over 25 years, states that Clinton has become an expert at befriending those who are making social change while managing to avoid making such changes himself. Mixner identifies with Clinton in that he too grew up in a small town and was eager to break out into the world at large. Clinton, he suggests, although good at heart, is stuck in the people/authority-pleasing mode of operation that launched his political carrier. Mixner sees Clinton as treating the gay rights movement more like a special interest group that can be used to his advantage than as a legitimate civil rights movement.  
The current Democratic platform is seen as a retreat from Clinton’s first campaign platform. The current platform largely ignores the issue of gays in the military and although it denounces anti-gay discrimination Clinton promises to sign an agreement that would ban gay marriages on the federal level.

Segment Subjects: Escape from Hope; Don’t ask Don’t tell