Even if someone else wants to step up and defend DOMA, how do you avoid a repeat of the pro-Prop. 8 case? Where will you get your witnesses? How will you argue the case? What will this do to people's professional or political credibility? I think the Obama administration must have realized all this and now they don't want anything to with the case. And if that realization has hit the highest level of our government, then that is significant indeed. It should only be a matter of time before the repercussions pervade throughout the moral fabric of this country in the coming decade.