Obama punts on "Don't ask don't tell"

In a purely political move that shows Obama will not be Clinton II, he defers on a campaign promise to repeal the "don't ask don't tell" ban on gays in the military until an "official" meeting with the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
If Obama were the one driving this issue, it could be exactly the wedge issue that conservatives can use, much as they did in '93, to discredit the incoming president as too liberal and lead to another rousting by Republicans in the midterm elections in '10. However, Obama, as a clever politician understands that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department, both attempting to rebrand and contemporize the modern military push the repeal, something that has been hinted at recently, then Obama get's both a fulfillment of a campaign promise for a key Democratic Party demographic and is also able to keep his hands clean in the eyes of his more conservative supporters.