So does Sarah Palin support repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy or doesn't she?
Online pundits were trying to decide after she retweeted a conservative lesbian commentator's criticism of opposition to the policy's repeal.
On Twitter Monday, Tammy Bruce said that "this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already — the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed."
Palin retweeted the post. The former 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee hasn't spoken about the policy in public except to say last February that she was surprised at President Barack Obama's support for a repeal because it was not a priority at the time. So her retweet was seen by some as fraught with meaning.
Congress repealed the policy late last year.
Palin representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday, but Politico called the retweet a hint that Palin supports the repeal. Gawker said Palin is not "in the context of her party, rabidly homophobic," then wondered if perhaps she didn't understand the tweet or pushed the wrong button.
And the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart said Palin might really support the repeal, but he added "it's easy to support something that has already happened and costs you little to speak about." Capehart noted that Palin was silent in November after her 16-year-old daughter Willow used a gay slur against a Facebook user who criticized her mother's documentary series "Sarah Palin's Alaska."
The Business Insider's Glynnis MacNicol wrote that she suspected that the retweet was Palin's way of jumping on the bandwagon of support for the repeal without giving Obama any credit for repeal.
On her website, Bruce said the tweet was prompted by recently publicized videos made by Navy Capt. Owen Honors that included gay slurs and homoerotic shower scenes. The videos had been shown aboard the USS Enterprise several years ago, when Honors was the aircraft carrier's second-in-command.
Honors was removed Tuesday as commander of the Enterprise.
"At the very least I do think it's fair to say anyone, regardless of their position on DADT, would indeed find the situation on the Enterprise rankly hypocritical," Bruce wrote. "My tweet was also a condemnation of DADT as an attempt to continue to marginalize gays and lesbians in the military and beyond."
Bruce said she was getting numerous e-mails asking her to interpret the meaning of Palin's retweet. She said she hadn't spoken with Palin about the issue.
The retweet by a potential 2012 presidential contender was a condemnation of the "social ostracizing" of gay people, as far as Bruce is concerned.
"Some have suggested this 'completely changes the 2012 election,'" Bruce wrote. "Not really — perhaps for some who believed the (lame stream media) and Gay Gestapo lie that Sarah Palin was somehow a bigot or homophobe, I hope this does cause some to take a second look at Palin, away from the left's predictable 'She's a Hater!!' meme."
