In an interview with the Indianapolis Star, Mitch Daniels adamantly defends his call for a truce on social issues until economic ones (primarily the debt) are sorted out.
Reason: The debt is akin to a "foreign army massed at our border."
In that situation, Americans might table a "war on marriage" for the real thing.
Q: You said the next president would have to have a truce on social issues, and really came in the crosshairs of criticism for that.
A: Some. I got a ton of positive feedback, too.
Q: You haven't changed your mind that that's the right course?
A: No. I say that with enormous respect for the people who want to see gay marriage legalized or who have a strong view on some other such question and want to see don't ask, don't tell go away.
I've sort of come to think of it this way. If there were a foreign army massed at our border right now, I think most Americans would rush to do what they could to help defend the country and they'd find themselves figuratively in the trench next to people that are very different from them and that held different views. If the threat were defeated, we might go right back to our disagreements. That's all I'm saying.
If you don't believe that the threat is as serious as I do, then you see the arithmetic differently than I do. But if you do see that then I think it leads you to this conclusion. That's all I have to say about it. Believe me, I completely respect, in fact I share the depth of feeling on some of these questions with some people. I'm just looking at, shouldn't we save America first while there's time?
