You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life - Albert Camus

Gates and Kooks

by Hal_10000

It’s looking like Barack Obama is going to make a wise decision at Defense:

Democratic officials said they see new signs that President-elect Barack Obama will ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay in his post.

If Gates stays, no reconfirmation hearing would be needed, officials said.

Keeping Gates at the helm would help give Obama political cover for a gradual reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq and would enhance his relationship with Gen. David Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq and now the head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gates has been about as good a SecDef and Rumsfeld was a bad one.  He could be affiliated with the Martian Party for all I care, as along as he’s getting the job done.

Predictably, however, Obama’s retention of Gates, his appointing of Hillary and other potential cabinet picks have some of his supporter a bit piqued.

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama’s national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.

“Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning,” said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the 54-chapter Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Whatever Obama thought about the war, he wasn’t proposing that we just pick up and hit the road.  Even the most optimistic scenario had a withdrawal taking months, if not years.  And if you’re going to get out of the war, it makes sense to put people in charge who know how the system works.

But this illustrates a point I’ve been making.  I keep saying that Obama will have to govern toward the center and liberal friends keep asking me why this should be.  This is why.  You simply can’t govern liberal enough to please liberals.  In this case, it’s not enough to favor a slow withdrawal from Iraq. They want the army out NOW!  This should get really entertaining about the time we get to healthcare reform.

Comments

Posted by syddelish on 11/21/08 at 12:55 AM from

I’ll change this for the “Only Republicans=Conservatives” types around here for you HAL:

You simply can’t govern Christianity enough to please Christians.  In this case, it’s not enough to favor a slow banning of gay marriage. They want the homosexuals out NOW!  This should get really entertaining about the time we get to tort reform.

Posted by on 11/21/08 at 10:14 AM from

Back when Hillary was getting her but beat by Obama, there was a political cartoon showing two bitter, dykish, liberal women explaining their dislike of Obama.  One side thought he was too conservative, the other too liberal.  Obama, regardless of his leanings, had better be smart enough to realize that extremist voices such as Daily Kos don’t actually represent anybody but a fringe minority that most people despise.

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