When Navy ships return home, tradition holds that one lucky raffle winner is selected to be the first to kiss a loved one upon disembarking. But when the USS Oak Hill came home to Virginia Beach today, there was one teeny (history-making) change.

Chris Wallace struck back at pundit Ann Coulter‘s criticism of his question to Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Fox Business’s Imus In The Morning. “You know, ever since Ms. Coulter attacked the 9/11 widows and said they were self-promoters, who were enjoying their husband’s death on 9/11, I stopped paying attention to her,” Wallace said.

Chris Wallace‘s heated interview with presidential hopeful Rick Santorum yesterday on his opposition to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell returned to the fore of the Santorum campaign his social conservatism, but not in a way that would render Wallace immune to scrutiny, even on his own network. On The O’Reilly Factor tonight, Ann Coulter slammed Wallace in response to a question by host Laura Ingraham, arguing that race and sexual orientation were not socially interchangeable, and that guest Juan Williams “should have punched” Wallace for conflating the two.

Hours after GOP candidate Rick Santorum told Fox’s Megyn Kelly that he didn’t hear audience members loudly booing gay serviceman Stephen Hill during Thursday night’s Fox News/Google Republican Presidential Debate, fellow candidate Gary Johnson appeared on MSNBC’s Politics Nation to tell Rev. Al Sharpton that he did hear the booing, and wished he’d said something about it. Johnson, as it turns out, was Santorum’s podium next-door neighbor during the debate.

On Friday afternoon’s edition of America Live, host Megyn Kelly, who acted as a co-moderator in last night’s Fox News/Google Republican Presidential Debate, asked one of those participating candidates — Rick Santorum — about a controversial question that came up during the debate. And it wasn’t about Santorum’s particular answer to a question he had received from a gay soldier named Stephen Hill via YouTube, but, rather, about the audience’s reaction to the soldier’s question.

At Thursday night’s Fox News/Google Republican Presidential Debate, the crowd was once again the star of an ugly moment. Moderator Megyn Kelly introduced a question via Youtube from Stephen Hill, a soldier who’s currently serving in Iraq. When the man asked what the candidates would do about the US policy on gays in the military, like himself, several in the crowd booed loudly. When candidate Rick Santorum replied that he would reinstate DADT, a thunderous ovation followed.

President Obama has some impressive policy accomplishments when it comes to gay rights, but even though he has presided over the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” has consistently supported a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and instructed his Justice Department not to defend the law in court, President Obama still has not said that he believes in the right of gay couples to marry. At Tuesday’s White House briefing, I asked Press Secretary Jay Carney why that is.

Lt. Dan Choi, the LGBT activist and West Point graduate that became a media staple during the battle to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, has been arrested in Moscow for attending a gay pride parade along with more than 30 other domestic and foreign activists. Interestingly enough, Moscow police allowed Lt. Choi to keep his cell phone with him in jail, which has allowed him to use Twitter to narrate the entire legal process.

At Monday’s White House briefing, The Blade‘s Chris Johnson asked Gibbs about a 1996 questionnaire that indicated Obama’s support for same-sex marriage, and I followed up by asking if the President was any closer to revealing his “evolved” personal beliefs on the subject. Gibbs pointed to previous remarks by the President, and said it’s an issue that he “thinks a lot about,” but there are no immediate plans for him to address the issue.

At Tuesday’s White House briefing, Robert Gibbs fielded several questions about the status of the repeal of DOMA (The Defense of Marriage Act), which he said, “given the current makeup of the Congress,” would be “inordinately challenging.”

Given President Obama’s recent remarks about his “evolving” opinion on same-sex marriage, and the fact that he used last year’s State of the Union address to promise the repeal of DADT, I asked Gibbs if the President might address the DOMA repeal, and his personal views on gay marriage, at this year’s SOTU.

Earlier today, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin caused a stir with a retweet that many read as a cryptic indicator that the Mama Grizzly was poised to come out in favor of some gay rights. Prominent Palin fansite Conservatives4Palin.com, however, has swooped in to defend her honor, noting that Palin’s retweet of Tammy Bruce‘s sentiment, “But this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already–the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed,” doesn’t indicate support for gay rights. I’m inclined to agree.

The Daily Show returned to the airwaves last night after a two week holiday break with little hard news nor media coverage having occurred in the last week to dissect. So host Jon Stewart turned to his not-so-wayback machine, and recapped President Obama‘s stunning string of legislative victories that came in the last week of the lame duck session. Stewart compared Obama to a young Jedi known as Luke Skywalker, hero of Star Wars, in a funny, clever and somewhat ham-fisted analogy.

MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur interviewed GOProud Chairman Christopher Barron Thursday night, and while the subject was supposed to be a boycott of CPAC by social conservatives, Uygur began with a broader question: “Why on God’s green Earth are you a Republican?”

While some people were considerably bummed about the way Congress’ lame duck session ended, it was all smiles and back patting over at Hardball. However, some interesting things happened when Chris Matthews asked guests David Brock and Richard Socarides why gay rights is still such a partisan issue. Both men are openly gay however Brock also used be a self-proclaimed “right wing hit man” (he’s now CEO of Media Matters) who had an interesting perspective and discussed how the GOP uses “the fear of gay people” to “gin up their base.”

Earlier today President Obama celebrated signing into law the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the policy that only allowed gays to serve in the military if they kept their sexuality a secret. While some conservatives think repeal means the country is “not taking the military seriously,” and other military leaders are confident the military can adapt and just happy to move on from it at least one Congressman, Todd Akin from Missouri, is still confused about what the original problem was and why social statements have taken priority over national defense.

President Obama held a year-end press conference today, and some might have mistook it for a victory lap. The White House had reason to be happy given how they rebounded from a tough mid-term election to pass a lot of legislation during a lame-duck session. ABC News’ Jake Tapper focused on the passing of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but immediaitely tying it to the looming issue of gay marriage. Obama’s response seemed to keep open the possibility that the Administration’s position might in fact be evolving.

With Don’t Ask Don’t Tell dead for all intense and purposes, we might as well all talk about things that don’t make it seem like we’re still in a previous decade. However, Nicholas Ballasy, a reporter for conservative CNS News recently managed to catch up with Rep. Barney Frank to ask about the “implications” of the repeal, namely, whether or not army showers are gonna get all gay and stuff. While Frank initially bristled at the question, he gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and turned the questioning around, making for an interesting little interview.

On Fox News Channel‘s Red Eye, Ann Coulter unleashed a fury of controversial comments in response to the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military policy. However, whether one finds her thoughts offensive or funny depends entirely on one’s own view of Coulter’s role in political discourse. For those who take her every word seriously, you probably will be justified in being upset with her comments here.

With Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell finally meeting its demise this past weekend, many have been curious to see how our armed forces would handle the change. Prior to the historic vote on Saturday, some people made rather condescending theories that our military would be thrown into utter chaos. Others predicted that the soldiers and superiors would react with class and professionalism. A Redditor who happens to also be in the Air Force, uploaded a screen shot of an email he or she received along with all the other service men and women and it proves, shocker of shockers, that the latter appears to be true.

There is a lot to see in this clip from The McLaughlin Group including a wildly colorful sports jacket worn by host John McLaughlin and an even more colorful commentary by conservative commentator Pat Buchanan as he established the arguments against repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military policy. With most public figures championing repeal as a positive and historical civil rights moment, it’s at least interesting to hear Buchanan defend the opposing view so passionately.

On Saturday, December 18, 2010, the US Senate passed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 by a 65-31 margin, clearing the way for President Obama to fulfill a promise that many have seen as too long in coming. While the White House has maintained all along that a legislative repeal was the only “durable solution,” many, myself included, felt that the President should have put a moratorium on DADT discharges until such a repeal could be enacted.

Had he done so, however, it’s very likely that the President would not, now, be poised to sign that legislative repeal into law.

Today on ABC’s This Week, Christiane Amanpour played host to a spirited debate over DADT with a panel of military experts, insiders, and veterans on both sides of the issue. The panel included Lieutenant Colonel Bob Maginnis, of the Family Research Council, and Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, both of whom oppose the repeal of DADT. Supporting the repeal on the panel were Clarke Cooper, an active Army reservist and executive director of the group Log Cabin Republicans, Tammy Schultz, director of the national security and joint warfare at the Marine Corps War College; and General Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander.

Yesterday the Senate’s Armed Services committee held a hearing regarding the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, during which Senator John McCain expressed concern that military leaders had not taken into consideration the views of their subordinates on an issue of this magnitude. Jon Stewart rebuffed this notion by holding up the results of the detailed survey, then followed with classic clips of McCain lauding his own “maverick” style of leadership in which he’s ostensibly spurned the views of his subordinates.

Make no mistake: Senator Scott Brown is a smart man. He is a practicing lawyer who’s had a very successful career and was elected to replace Senator Ted Kennedy earlier this year. So it is a bit odd that during tioday’s Senate Armed Services Committee meeting over the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Senator Brown asked a witness to explain “what does expedited mean?” Surely he knows the definition. Or was he playing to a potentially confused audience of 50 or so CSPAN viewers (a demographic that almost certainly understand what “expedited” means)?

A just-released Pentagon study on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell–covered live on all cable nets–finds overturning DADT would not cause any longterm problems for the American military.

“A strong majority (of American troops surveyed)–more than two thirds–do not object to gays and lesbians serving openly in the military,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who introduced the survey’s results alonside Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.