Comments for Drive-by in the day, then murder you in the dark...

Drive-by in the day, then murder you in the dark...

2008-12-02T17:42:01Z

Once again, the dagger of venom, not the battle-axe of doom:

Although President-elect Barack Obama's decision to keep Robert M. Gates at the helm of the Pentagon will provide a measure of continuity for a military fighting two wars, many of Gates's top deputies are expected to depart their jobs, according to senior defense and transition officials...

The anticipated turnover of many key positions suggests that although Gates will help provide some continuity, the status quo will not necessarily endure at the Pentagon.

The best punch is the one they never see.

Comment from Bruce on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T17:52:23Z

as a muy-thai practitioner...i can attest to that!

Comment from Fred on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T17:56:58Z

T-N C,

You do know that there were extensive negotiations between Obama and Gates before Gates decided to accept Obama's offer to stay on, right? There's no sucker punch here; you can be sure that any turnover in the DoD was agreed upon by Gates ahead of time. Gates didn't need the gig: he could have left on Jan 20th with his stellar reputation intact and gone back to his higher-paying, no-stress job running a university. Obama's the one who wanted Gates to stay, and agreed to whatever terms he needed to to make that happen.

Comment from FRIFL on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T18:07:07Z

Shit, I find myself agreeing with Fred!

It's been a while since I've puked, and the taste of vomit in my mouth is just as unpleasant as I remember...

Comment from Tom on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T18:08:49Z

I don't think the suggestion was that it was Gates getting sucker-punched, but rather the mouth-frothers who claim that ditching Gates would be "unserious" whils simultaneously sneering that retaining Gates was business-as-usual.

Comment from Ta-Nehisi Coates on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T18:09:57Z

As a point of clarity, I'm not arguing that he sucker-punched Gates. All you've got to do is scroll down and read that Fred Barnes piece--or much of the rest of the righty reaction across the blogs--to see who the dagger was for.

Comment from Sarah on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T18:13:05Z

Hey, maybe our Fred is Fred Barnes! That's why he's been mouthing the same talking points. Well, hello there, Mr Barnes.

Comment from Ned Raggett on 2008-12-02

2008-12-02T18:16:12Z

What T-NC just said. What's been very interesting is all the usual suspects (Barnes is a prime example, plenty of others out there) who are either looking like fools for saying "You mean he wasn't a frothing at the mouth Marxist?" or are still on the "GAWDAMN he's out to destroy us all" tip and looking even stupider. Either way, I relax and laugh.

There was a piece written by a former UK Tory government functionary that ran around Election Day basically telling the 'thinkers' on the right "Based on my experiences in the UK in 1997 when we lost, you have no idea how pointlessly irrelevant you're going to become in the short term." Stuff like this renders them even more irrelevant.

Comment from CitizenE on 2008-12-03

2008-12-03T15:37:16Z

We signed an agreement with Iraq; we're going to have to leave. Gates is down with responsible withdrawl because it's going to happen. He's ok with closing Gitmo, too. Righties somehow think that we're going to be in Iraq forevah because of this Gates thing. It's true Obama should not forget in Iraq or, more pointedly, Afghanistan the fate of LBJ. He enacted all sorts of civil rights and antipoverty legislation that was helpful and historic, but Vietnam bit his butt.
However, I think everyone needs to wait and see--good and bad; a lot of folks thought Bush had an all star Republican team when he went in, but as it turned out Colin Powell was hamstrung and allowed himself to get played; Condolezza Rice was selling star wars on 9/10/01 and failed to close a deal as SOS; Christine Whitman over at epa presided over loosening the rules about arsenic in the drinking water, and so on.
We can see O is serious and doing his best to be as transparent with the public as one can expect. His picks are unsurprisingly centrist leaning left with one or two exceptions and stolid, though also for the most part hardly innovative, all around. But the proof is in the pudding.
I want him to succeed, but I'll hang fire till we see what we see on game day.
Insofar as navel gazing conservative punditry is concerned--TN--you talking Ali-Liston here? If so, that seems about right to me.