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Particularly capricious was Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.). I found outrageous his gratuitous comments with regard to Elaine's submitted testimony and motives. He insinuated that had Congressman Frank been there, Elaine would find his presence objectionable because Frank would "sexualize the atmosphere." Snyder's sarcastic manner and interruption of Elaine's answer made it difficult for her to counter with the obvious - members of Congress do not cohabit with Barney Frank.

Moving on, Snyder stated that based on Elaine's submitted testimony, the military should "only recruit lesbians" since they have the lowest incidence of HIV of any population. It was a sensational broadside, stated with the specific purpose of denigrating Elaine. More insidiously, it diverted attention from the real issue: elevation of risk to troops.

Our deployed servicemen and servicewomen are, by job description, in high-risk situations. So now we're going to introduce a population (homosexuals) to the force whose risk of being non-deployable due to HIV infection is far greater than that of any other group? What kind of sense does that make? Like other Democrat members during the hearing, Snyder allowed Elaine no time to complete a response. The Democrats just refused to talk about the consequences of repealing the law.

Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), the ranking member, was no help, staying silent while the Democrats asked one loaded, accusatory type of question after another. McHugh talked about having another hearing, to bring in the "experts" - like the Santa-Barbara-based Palm Center. Formerly named the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, the Palm Center is a so-called public-policy organization whose sole priority is repealing the law stating homosexuals are ineligible for military service. Clearly an objective source. (If you don't detect the sarcasm, see Elaine's article on their latest "study" on homosexuals' effect on unit cohesion here. (web site) McHugh otherwise raised not the slightest objection to the tactics of the other side. Nor did he ask substantive questions on the matters of public policy that should have been the focus of the hearing.

Chris Shays (R-Ct.) showed up, even though he is not a member of the committee. He tried very hard to get Elaine to say something -- anything - personally critical of the female Navy captain who was there. When she refused to do that and said she was there to discuss public policy, he began demagoguing Elaine, her testimony, and her arguments.

Subcommittee members on the Democratic side, with few exceptions, were demagoguing and flat-out rude - taking a shot at Elaine and then asking the other side to comment. One of the Democrat women asked her, "Mrs. Donnelly, when did you realize that you were a heterosexual?" And of Sgt. Maj. Jones, "Do you think homosexuality is morally wrong?" (He responded no; as a former Ranger and Delta Force soldier he saw it as an issue of unit cohesion.) Regardless of what they said, the committee members clearly were determined to make examples of them as the press and the Left did with retired General Pace a year and a half ago.

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