I gotta say its still early but im starting to get the feeling this guy may have a real brain on his shoulders, maybe he is the one



Official: Obama asks Gates to stay at Pentagon


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Nov 25, 7:04 PM (ET)


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CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar the two men's discussions.

Obama is expected to announce the selection of Gates and other members of a national security brain trust next week. Gates has served as President George W. Bush's defense chief for two years.

Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.
Retaining Gates provides stability for a stretched military fighting two wars during the turbulent changeover in administrations. Gates once said it was inconceivable that he would stay on past the close of Bush's term on Jan. 20.

But the 65-year-old former spymaster had recently turned mum in public on the circumstances under which he would stay, even briefly, in an Obama administration. Keeping Gates might afford Obama a sort of extended transition, in which critical military issues are left in trusted hands while Obama focuses most intensely on the financial crisis.

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He is definately intelligent, but the question remains...is he honest?

"President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year ...."

I'll bet the uber-left is all pissed off about this. Gates is the one who came up with the strategy of "The Surge."

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Keeping Gates Signals Change
November 26, 2008, 10:35AM

Keeping Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense was the most dramatic signal Barack Obama could have sent that he intends to implement major changes in defense policy. That may sound counterintuitive, but it has the virtue of being true. As Josh noted this morning, "cabinet appointees execute policy. They work for the president." So if Gates is tasked to take us out of Iraq and to redouble our efforts in Afghanistan, we can expect him to carry out both tasks with the same degree of competence he's exhibited thus far in his tenure. In a properly functioning administration, the Secretary of Defense is one of several key voices advising the president on where and how to exercise military force. But he possesses primary responsibility for deciding how that force should be structured, staffed, equipped, and supplied. Those are decisions the president largely delegates, and thus where the secretary exercises his greatest degree of autonomy. And it is in those realms of defense policy that Gates has most distinguished himself. In retaining Gates, Obama is sending a clear signal to the Pentagon bureaucracy that their usual strategy of stalling and out-lasting civilian appointees is going to fail; that he intends to pursue Gates' key reforms. And that's a decision which should make us all stand and cheer.

TPM

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Grower's Bookshelf

Agreed. That reminds me, I read an article today about the bomb in India. They quoted a few world leaders on the subject, including Barack Obama. Notably absent was a quote from George W. Bush, you know, the current US president. I guess no one cares what he has to say anymore.