Barack Obama may recruit defence chief Robert GatesSurprise, surprise. But here's the best:In defiance of traditional party labels, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, may ask the defence secretary of President George W Bush to stay on if he wins the White House.
Obama’s top foreign policy and national security advisers are pressing the case for keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon after he won widespread praise for his performance. The move would be in keeping with Obama’s desire to appoint a cabinet of all the talents.....
Richard Danzig, an adviser to Obama on national security and a former navy secretary, said: “My personal position is Gates is a very good secretary of defence and would be an even better one in an Obama administration.”
The appointment would cause a furore among Democratic party activists but would have the advantage of providing continuity at a time when Iraq appears to be stabilising and demanding more independence from America.
Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution in Washington, a foreign policy adviser to Obama, said: “Robert Gates is one of the best defence secretaries we have had in a long time and it makes a lot of sense to keep him.”
Gates, a former member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, was initially sceptical about the troop surge in Iraq and has been quietly seeking an orderly transition to a new US administration in January so that hard-won military gains in Iraq are not thrown away in a hasty withdrawal.
At one stage last year, he had hoped that 60,000–70,000 US troops could be withdrawn by Christmas this year, but he was persuaded to back more modest reductions by General David Petraeus, the US commander. ...
Gates showed he was comfortable working with Democrats when he appointed John Hamre, a former senior official under Bill Clinton, to serve as chairman of the influential Defence Policy Board last year. He also appointed William Perry, a former defence secretary who is advising Obama, to the board....
James Carafano, a defence expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, said Obama would be making a “smart move” if he asked Gates to carry on. [Gates] has clearly adopted a mainstream course on national security that would be acceptable to either McCain or Obama.”
Speculation intensified this weekend that Obama may offer Hillary Clinton the position of health secretary after he appointed Neera Tanden, her senior policy director and a key architect of her healthcare plan, to his campaign team.Aiieee! Once wasn't enough? Spare us, Pharaoh! Spare us!
Comments (7)
Reminds me of Bill Clinton's 2nd term, when he picked (Republican) William Cohen to be his Sec Def. Managing the empire is too important a job to let petty differences between the two pro-war corporate parties get in the way.
Posted by Nicholas Hart | June 29, 2008 2:07 PM
Posted on June 29, 2008 14:07
He's helping us evolve.
I reckon it's going to take us all a while to come to grips with that. My own soul is kind of surly and doesn't take well to being ushered around.
Posted by Al Schumann | June 29, 2008 10:55 PM
Posted on June 29, 2008 22:55
"Lightworker"...? ...rare kind of attuned...? ...usher in a new way of being on the... P'WHAHHH HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHA...ehh, heh heh, sorry...
But, aaaaaanyway.
I'm just wondering -- after his famous Preacher-Under-The-Bus trick, after his excluding Muslim women in headscarves from foto ops, after his refusal to participating in public election financing, after his Bill Cosby rant about how Black Men Suck, after his mentioning keeping on a Bush flunkie for Secretary of "Defense", after his bitching about the recent Supremes' death penalty decision... what do Maya Angelou and Alice Walker have to say for themselves? I'd really love to hear what they're thinking, now that it's been revealed that B.O. is neither King nor Malcolm nor even close to Mandela.
Despite my better judgement, I've found myself rooting for B.O. in November only so that, after he's been in office a couple of years and shown us what he's really all about, I get to see the looks on the faces of Angelou and Walker at the instant they realize they're going to have to eat their own dog food.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | June 30, 2008 7:34 AM
Posted on June 30, 2008 07:34
Uh- oh for the "progressives for Obama" camp - oh boy, this is going to be rough - all those young, eager for "change" professionals, and they can now barely see B. Obama as he back-peddles towards the pier, - damn, there he fell off, only to be rescued by a Zodiac piloted by Lieberman, his former mentor - what is going on here - what kind of ruse is this, set yourself up as some kind of new-age Luke Lightsaber only to be the newest Clintonian triangulator with a vengeance?
Okay, back to the real drama of changing the supersystem - who's going to make the sandwiches for our protest group today? Where do you want to set up our informational table- Wal-Mart or Wendy's?
Posted by mjosef | June 30, 2008 11:46 AM
Posted on June 30, 2008 11:46
reminds me of fdr appointing
wo repubicans one each to run war and navy macvhine
as he prepared to build
his great american war machine
everything you need to know about
guiding the american empire you can lean from a roosevelt
teddy franklin....and eleanor
Posted by op | June 30, 2008 12:25 PM
Posted on June 30, 2008 12:25
Mike F., be reasonable. Ehrenreich, Moore and that whole wretched lot of appeasers have yet to acknowledge that they backpeddled furiously in 2004 for an asshole who thinks tasers are a perfectly reasonable tool in a political debate. If they don't have to apologize, why should Walker and Angelou have to apologize ?
Posted by ms_xeno | June 30, 2008 4:55 PM
Posted on June 30, 2008 16:55
Did you ever look closely at the Iraq Study Group?
http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2006/09/we-didnt-make-this-up.html
Posted by Jay Taber | July 1, 2008 8:45 PM
Posted on July 1, 2008 20:45