The most important appointment decision Obama will make during the transition, bar none, is who becomes, or remains, Secretary of Defense. As I have noted in the past, the Department of Defense oversees the expenditure of 52% of all discretionary spending, rendering it literally impossible for any other cabinet Secretary to oversee as much federal money. Further, keeping Gates on would only worsen Democratic image problems on national security, as he would be the second consecutive non-Democratic Secretary of Defense nominated by a Democratic President. The message would be clear: even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military.I think the budget point is valid. I'm less troubled by the image problem. If Barack Obama closes this thing out in Afghanistan and Iraq, everyone will remember that Bush started and bungled, and Obama cleaned-up and finished. My biggest question is what sort of job has Gates actually done? If he's sucked it up he should go. If not, given the current entanglements, I'm less inclined to skewer Obama over this one. Andrew is, obviously, pleased, Jason Zenerle debunks this silly notion that retaining Gates doesn't count as bipartisantship because Gates, evidently, isn't partisan enough.
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But you guys already knew that, right? Here's Chris Bowers:
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I think it's a good move. I've watched several interviews with Gates, and he seems cautioned/careful like Obama -- and unlike Rumsfeld & others in the Bush Admin. Yes, the war was a terrible, terrible mistake; but we're there, and we have to get out sensibly. I think an Obama Admin - Gates combo will do just that.
Gates will stay on for a year or so, overseeing the important steps in the withdrawal from Iraq. It's somewhat important that a Bush appointee does this. They need to clean up their own mess and it provides political cover to Obama against 'losing in Iraq'.
Whoever succeeded Gates will be a better measure of how Obama wants to run the DoD.
I think one of your fellow Atlantic bloggers (can't remember which one)pionted out the real significance of keeping Gates. To paraphrase, and add just a bit, in the event that Obama decides not to abide by his campaign promise (imagine that) to pull the troops out of Iraq, he can point to bipartisianship to mitigate the backlash.
Is Gates even a registered Republican? Regardless, I can't imagine that the public would know, much less care about the party affiliation of a Sec. of Defense.
I don't think that Democrats picking Republicans for Defense is a function of Democrats having an inability to run the military, so much as it simply being an area where the party philosophies are less divergent. If you're going to pick a Republican for a cabinet post, do you want him/ her in charge of tax policy? Health care? Housing? Environmental issues? Education?
Gates seems competent and moderate. He hasn't given me reason not to trust his judgment, and more importantly, Obama's given me plenty of reasons to trust his. I'm willing to give this a shot.
My biggest question is what sort of job has Gates actually done?
Well his past certainly instills a lot of confidence...
Level of involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal
Because of his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. In 1984, as deputy director of CIA, Gates advocated that the U.S. initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the U.S. do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove the Sandinista government [14]. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment of Gates for his Iran-Contra activities or his responses to official inquiries.
Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested, in a letter to the Independent Counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would “significantly bear on the fitness” of Gates for the CIA post.
Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr.[15] The issue was whether the Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.
Grand Jury secrecy rules hampered Independent Counsel's response. Nevertheless, in order to answer questions about Gates' prior testimony, Independent Counsel accelerated his investigation of Gates in the summer of 1991. This investigation was substantially completed by September 3, 1991, at which time Independent Counsel determined that Gates' Iran-Contra activities and testimony did not warrant prosecution.
Independent Counsel made this decision subject to developments that could have warranted reopening his inquiry, including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA's former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision, the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates's status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George's first trial in the summer of 1994, but Gates was never called.
In all fairness, Obama said during the campaign that he wanted to expand the military. Now I hope that he does that in an intelligent, efficient way, but nothing about the Gates pick does anything but reinforce positions Obama has held for quite a while. Indeed, it's been assumed for months that Obama would retain Gates.
My response to Chris Bowers, mostly, is to wonder if he was paying attention to what Obama was actually saying during the campaign, or if he was just projecting his [Bower's] preferred positions on to Obama.
Woah, you need to keep up; Obama has decided to cave in and name only progressive bloggers with their hair on fire to his cabinet.
http://dagblog.com/humor-satire/reacting-internet-petition-obama-replaces-cabinet-waiting-angry-progressive-bloggers-25
Seriously. This guy is playing chess (ok, his game is really poker), but the absolutely best way to get progressive policies in place is to line up people who aren't seen as strictly leftist on your side. And the best way to fulfill his campaign promise to get out of Iraq without taking (too many) potshots from the right are to have Bush's SoD help us extricate ourselves from that ditch.
The "image problem" is irrelevant for a much simpler reason: Most Americans don't know or care much about the members of a President's cabinet, and they know/care even less about their party affiliations. How many Americans, on Election Day, do you think could have named the current SecDef? Probably 20% at most. Heck, less than 50% of Americans are even sure that the Dems control Congress. What are the odds that, if you'd polled Americans ten years ago on the party affiliation of major cabinet members, they'd pick out William Cohen as a Republican? The consensus assumption would be that Clinton's entire cabinet was composed of Democrats.
If Obama pulls out of Iraq like he promised, the entire public will credit (or blame) him for it and as everyone knows, Obama is a Democrat; that's all that your average citizen will see. Meanwhile everyone remembers Bush and Rumsfeld started the war and that they were Republicans. Bowers is too absorbed in inside baseball to see this basic fact.
My response to Chris Bowers, mostly, is to wonder if he was paying attention to what Obama was actually saying during the campaign, or if he was just projecting his [Bower's] preferred positions on to Obama.
A lot of progressives didn't pay attention to what Obama said and there was a lot of projection going on. Obama is a mainstream American politician, I think some of his supporters(and detractors) think he is a European lefty.
Gates's opinion on Iraq, especially the surge, contradict Obama's, however, those are disagreements that are in the past because Iraq is winding down. On future issues such as Iran ,Afghanistan, and enlargement of the military, I suspect they agree.
In all fairness, Obama said during the campaign that he wanted to expand the military. Now I hope that he does that in an intelligent, efficient way, but nothing about the Gates pick does anything but reinforce positions Obama has held for quite a while.
Brien is exactly right. Chris Bowers is writing some great, progressive-skepticism pieces during the transition, but he's missing a couple of points. That the President and Congress are the drivers for Pentagon spending.
And once you get past the Obama is not George Bush/John McCain in that he's not a neo-imperialist, war-driven, no-diplomacy, grossly-incompetent president; he's quite militaristic in his foreign policy.
For a generation, too few Democrats wanted to work on/with/for the military. That's why Democratic presidents have been reaching for moderate Republicans--and also why some pretty non-partisan guys feel like Republicans. With the rise of the "Fighting Dems," that won't be true much longer, but it's probably still true now.
"My biggest question is what sort of job has Gates actually done?"
Have you been following the news from Iraq at all over the last two years?
I've always liked Gates, he's been my favorite Bush Cabinet official. So this doesn't bother me at all, though it is worth keeping an eye on who his deputies will be.
Speaking as a progressive member of the military, I would say that Gates has brought accountability and responsive leadership back to the Pentagon. He handled the Walter Reed Hospital problems wonderfully. He is fixing the damage done by the previous SecDef and doing as well as can be expected within the policy constraints of the current administration. He has gone on record saying that State Dept needed more money: it is clear that we won't be able to get out of the mess we are in without enormous progress on the diplomatic front and he seems to be acknowledging that. I think keeping some continuity at DOD is a good thing for many of the reasons outlined above and I suspect that in an Obama adminstration the DOD will be given orders by the Commander in Chief, rather than giving him advice.
Ta-Nehisi--I think it may be time to run that photo of Obama with the caption --don't worry people, I got it covered, or whatever it says. :>
I went to Texas A&M, where Dr. Gates was university president before being picked for the SecDef position. I was really torn about his initial appointment since Gates has done a great job for this university--his successor as president has been pretty pitiful in that regard (a lot of thought is that she's just a seatwarmer for Governor Rick Perry, blah).
I think Gates has done the best job that he can for the DoD. Think about the Walter Reed scandal and his sacking of the Air Force head honchos! You think Rumsfeld would have handled that well? I think not. The only thing I'm not happy about is Gates' support for the RRW program, as per his recent speech. I'm definitely happy for Obama to keep Gates for a time. I just wish we could have him back as A&M president.