While I'm no fan of DOMA for a couple reasons, this announcement strikes me as pretty unsavory for two main reasons:

1) It smacks of serious Executive Branch overreach. Our constitution created a system where the Legislative passes laws, and the Executive enforces them. Its up to the Judicial to settle debates on the constitutionality of those laws. With the administration in effect nullifying a duly passed law, it subverts this system. Screwing with the careful balance of power crafted by the constitution is always a bad idea.

2) The goddam hypocrisy. The people cheering Obama for this decision, are the exact same people who advocate strict gun control. How can any reasonable person say that the constitution protects Gay Marriage (!) and at the same time say that it contains no individual right to bear arms? It takes a pretty strained interpretation of the document to say that it guarantees the right for two guys to get married. To be able to wring that out of it, but still have the audacity to ignore something a prominent and simple as the second amendment-- well, that takes some pretty serious chutzpah.

I like Gingrich's approach, that the Legislature should man up, and use its power of the purse to make the Executive branch enforce its laws. A congressional act revoking all funding from the DoJ until it starts to do its goddam job should do the trick.

Anyone want to lay a bet on that happening? I'll give some pretty long odds.....

yk