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Rachel Maddow favorite and frequent MSNBC guest Ana Marie Cox is quickly becoming our best ally in holding Obama and his administration accountable for not doing anything to stop the DADT discharges.

Remember when Cox made Press Secretary Robert Gibbs look like he was out of the loop regarding DADT? Or when she sassed him on his non-answers regarding Obama’s DADT foot-dragging? Great stuff.

Now, in the new issue of Playboy, former Wonkette Cox has written exactly why and how the current administration’s almost unfathomable DADT repeal delays are both wrong and dangerous.

Most Americans probably think of the ability of gays and lesbians to openly serve in the United States military as a civil rights issue. And, of course, it is. But as he hesitates to take leadership on it, Obama should remember just how urgent a national security issue it is. In the end, Harry Truman didn’t integrate the military because it was the “right” thing to do—truth be told, Truman was something of a bigot; with no apparent irony, he once called the White House’s black waitstaff “an army of coons.” While reportedly horrified by racial violence in general, Truman integrated the military in part because advisers told him that the most “efficient use of African-Americans in the Army” would eliminate discrimination, and because his White House counsel, Clark Clifford, believed that championing civil rights and the courting the African-American vote were essential to winning re-election.

. . . White House aides I’ve spoken to seem personally frustrated with the administration’s slowdown on the issue, and emphasize that the president has not changed his mind. “He brought it up today,” one senior staffer told me recently, as though it were a pesky but distant concern. That, too, is Washingtonese. Rough translation: “We’ll get it done when we get it done; don’t bother me.” Such non-affirming affirmations are the order of the day in most administrations. Still, it’s disappointing that a White House run by a former community organizer will need to be prodded by activist pressure simply to do the right thing—particularly when it is also the smart thing.

Read the entire article over on Playboy.