Jake Tapper: Gates a “Done Deal“
Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. “It is a done deal,” a source close to the process tells ABC News.Update from Colin: Two sources told me they believe Richard Danzig will be named Deputy Defense Secretary. He will choose the new faces to man the Pentagon, ensuring the Obama people get folks who are loyal to them and reflect their policy inclinations. Apparently, Danzig will hold that slot for up to a year. Then, if all goes well, he will replace Gates.
ALSO:President-elect Obama will introduce his national security team to the public early next week, a seasoned team that will include: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), as Secretary of State; retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as National Security Adviser; retired Adm. Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence; and Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations.
Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.
The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
[EDITOR: Okay, I swear, this is the last time a make a political prediction. I dismissed the rumor of Gates’ being retained as ridiculous for weeks. Man am I eating crow now. I still say Danzig will eventually be SecDef…but, wait, there I go again! –Christian]
–John Noonan
Our CGS...
So much for my “Sunday Paper” prediction …
LOL
Hey atleast your not the new york times you have ethics!
Those darn liberal Presidents and the things they do!
Bad sign for the F-22.
I’m glad he decided to stick with Gates even though some in the anti-war wing of the Democratic party may not like it.15
Pick the best at handand if they don’t make it have another ready to go, we not only can, we will!
And Gen. James L. Jones USMC retired is part of this team. Yes, there is hope.
Damn Gates and his hate for the F-22A is pissing me off.
What is the big deal with the F-22 — how many is enough — we have more than enough to fight off any enemy in Air to Air Combat. We have and will continue to have air superiority. Get over it. We now need the F-35 for Air to Ground combat. I like the Gates nomination to stay on as Secretary of Defense.
Let the competence continue!
F-22.…big contributor to fighting the War on Terror.….
Glad to finally see something good in the News.
Told You so! Good job RENEGADE…
–DA
For all the Obamatrons who can’t see the forest for the trees, this pick is called “an act of desparation”. Obama is literally the dog that caught the bus; totally clueless now that he’s confronted with REALITY rather than platitudes. Promises? Out the window. Principles? Totally disposable. Ideology? Backburner.
What makes the difference is that Obama is a lib; the betrayal of his base with this pick will be spun as a “utilitarian” move with “marks of a great statesman who has tempered his ideological mission to fit the reality of the situation” (that should be said by a gravelly voiced narrator while Obama looks into the sunset with an American flag waving behind him). Let a conservative pull such a move and he’s labeled a liar and deceiver.
Anyway, in situations like these, a drowning man clings to anything that will keep him afloat. Thus, usher in the old Clinton administration, sprinkle in some Bush leftovers for good measure, and voila! There you have your “change” and “hope”: Clinton administration #2. Man, you fools were sold a bag of goods. Enjoy the fruits of your own blindness.
“For all the Obamatrons who can’t see the forest for the trees, this pick is called “an act of desparation”. Obama is literally the dog that caught the bus; totally clueless now that he’s confronted with REALITY rather than platitudes. Promises? Out the window. Principles? Totally disposable. Ideology? Backburner.
What makes the difference is that Obama is a lib; the betrayal of his base with this pick will be spun as a “utilitarian” move with “marks of a great statesman who has tempered his ideological mission to fit the reality of the situation” (that should be said by a gravelly voiced narrator while Obama looks into the sunset with an American flag waving behind him). Let a conservative pull such a move and he’s labeled a liar and deceiver.
Anyway, in situations like these, a drowning man clings to anything that will keep him afloat. Thus, usher in the old Clinton administration, sprinkle in some Bush leftovers for good measure, and voila! There you have your “change” and “hope”: Clinton administration #2. Man, you fools were sold a bag of goods. Enjoy the fruits of your own blindness.“
He picks a dem or liberal, he’s soft on Defense and National Security. He picks a republican and he’s desperate.
What choice could he have made that wouldn’t have been made out of weakness in your mind?
“this pick is called “an act of desparation”“
No, it’s called ‘picking the only person who was actually competent in the Bush Administration and not rocking the boat at a critical moment.‘
Still can’t get over the election results, can you?
“Enjoy the fruits of your own blindness…“
Yes Joe…things have been just marvelous under the Bush administration.….or are you blind to what is happening as we speak.…blind to a financial meltdown, an absence of leadership, absence of fiscal responsibility, absence of concience.…
Yeah, thanks for the wise advice but I’ll take whatever Obama delivers over the last eight years.
“He picks a dem or liberal, he’s soft on Defense and National Security. He picks a republican and he’s desperate.
What choice could he have made that wouldn’t have been made out of weakness in your mind?“
–He could pick his own people, not retreads from prior administrations. Isn’t that what “change” was all about? A new kind of government free from the rituals of the past? Hard to do that when your entire administration is composed of a bunch of Washington insiders.
“blind to a financial meltdown“
–You mean the one started by Carter, that came to fruition under Clinton, and ultimately blossomed (like a mushroom cloud) under the leadership of Obama, Dodd, Pelosi, Reid, and Barney Frank. You mean the one that Bush and McCain repeatedly tried to avert and fix throughout Bush’s 8 year tenure but were rebuked by the Dems every single time? You mean the one that the Dems repeatedly said wasn’t a crisis? You mean the one that was fomented by Obama’s favorite client, Acorn? You mean the one who’s favorite politicians were Chris Dodd and Barack Obama?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were 100% Democrat caused. You just put the same people into power who caused the crisis and you think they’re going to fix it? Good luck with that.
“an absence of leadership“
–You mean from Congress? Funny how things were pretty peachy up until Reid and Pelosi gained power in 2006. Then all hell broke loose. Now they want to fix their F-up by throwing 850 billion dollars of our tax money at it. The whole time with big, sh*t-eating grins on their faces. I learned pretty young that when a toddler starts to break something, you take it away from him and don’t let him handle it again. Guess the American people haven’t learned that lesson yet.
“absence of fiscal responsibility“
–No argument with you there. Bush spends like a drunken liberal.
“absence of concience“
–Not sure what that means, but if you’re referring to Abu Ghraib, GITMO, or interrogations, I think we didn’t do enough. If I have Al Qaeda in my presence, you go play with your dolls while I get the jumper cables and a wet sponge to keep your ass safe.
“Yeah, thanks for the wise advice but I’ll take whatever Obama delivers over the last eight years.“
These will look like the salad days compared to what this country will look like in eight years. Can you say Jimmy Carter II?
“You mean the one started by Carter, that came to fruition under Clinton, and ultimately blossomed (like a mushroom cloud) under the leadership of Obama, Dodd, Pelosi, Reid, and Barney Frank“
No, he means the one that started under Bush. The other one exists only in rightwing fantasies. At least try for credible ones; after eight years of Bush, is he not responsible for *anything* bad?
“No, he means the one that started under Bush.“
–Since the President has no oversight power over Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac, but Congress does, you mean the one that started under Pelosi/Reid, not Bush.
The simplest proof that the Democrats are to blame comes from the fact that they control every investigative body in the Congress, yet not a single Republican has been targeted. There’s no one to pin this on but themselves. At first they tried to pin blame on Republican Graham saying it was the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act that caused this, but Robert Rubin (Assistant to the President for Economic Policy under Clinton) came out and shot that argument down saying it had nothing to do with it. So there the Dems sit, with their social engineering completely to blame for this mess.
Bush Called For Reform of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac 17 Times in 2008 Alone… Dems Ignored Warnings
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/09/bush-called-for-reform-of-fannie-mae.html
McCain
Sorry Total, you’re in WAY over your head on this one. Just let it die.
“Sorry Total, you’re in WAY over your head on this one. Just let it die.“
Oh please. You throw a bunch of youtube links up and think that they’re evidence of something, other than your own gullibility.
Shockingly, Fannie & Freddie are a small part of this collapse (despite GOP whining about it): Lehman, AIG, Citigroup, the car companies, the crash in consumer spending, and so and so on, were built on the back of Bush’s economic policies. The chickens are coming home, and they’re not happy about it.
Apparently, for all that Bush wants to be compared to Truman, the buck stops anywhere *but* the Oval Office Desk.
WIlcox is right, all the rest of us are wrong. Including those of us who predicted that Gates was not leaving and has been a GOOD SecDef. Ok Extreme Sarcasm off…
…It takes a little longer for some to accept the election results.
–DA
As a followup, let’s run your logic through the whole way. If the Democrats were entirely responsible for creating the conditions for this, what does this say about the competence of the Bush administration? They had eight years (during most of which time, they controlled the Senate and the House), and THEY COULDN’T STOP IT. What you’re saying is that Republicans are *so* incompetent that they couldn’t even stop the Democrats from fooling them.
So our voting choice (again running your logic) is between the evil malign geniuses of the Democrats and the cartoonish incompetence of the Republicans.
Is that really what you want to argue?
Total, you should change your name to Totally clueless, because you obviously don’t know how the Congress works.
For example, Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006 on the platform of stopping the Iraq war. Guess a simple majority isn’t that effective, is it?
Unless you have a guaranteed super-majority (especially 60 votes in the Senate) which the Republicans didn’t, passing things through Congress is not cut and dried, no matter who the technical majority is. Bills are still killed in committee before even reaching a vote, especially when committees are chaired primarily by the other party. Filibusters are particularly effective, as well. But having a simple majority is very tough, especially when the Republican party was, and is, rife with RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) like Olympia Snow and Lincoln Chafee who constantly undermined their slim majority.
The difference here between the Democrats who claimed they were “fooled” into voting for the war and the Republicans who were unable to stop the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac machine is that the Republicans weren’t fooled, actively tried to stop the crisis from happening, and were stymied at every turn by Democrats. Both Republican bills to avert the disaster, the 2003 bill and the McCain sponsored 2005 bill, were 100% unanimously voted against by the Democrats.
Your sophistry might work against some, but to those who know better, it’s just the same old liberal lies.
Might also want to read Orson Scott Card’s assessment of Democrat culpability as well (Hint, he’s a Democrat.):
http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html
Referenced in Card’s article, the inimitable Thomas Sowell:
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/10/03/do_facts_matter?page=full&comments=true
Oops, just as I suspected. The 2005 legislation was killed in committee by the Democrats who wouldn’t allow a full vote. All Republicans voted for it, all Democrats against it:
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.28664,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
“In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent.“
…
“If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005–2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.”
So you’re going to stick with the “Republicans are too incompetent to govern effectively, even when they
“So you’re going to stick with the ‘Republicans are too incompetent to govern effectively, even when they
The only argument I’m a prisoner of is an argument with you, which makes me feel like I’m a prisoner in an insane asylum.
“The only argument I’m a prisoner of is an argument with you, which makes me feel like I’m a prisoner in an insane asylum.“
I do have some sympathy for you at this point. You’re stuck with the argument, but you’re beginning to realize the horrible flaw of logic in it. You can’t make the case against the Democrats without demonstrating massive Republican incompetence as well. If it was the Democrats who did it, it was the Republicans (holding the levers of power) who failed to stop it.
Heckuva job, there, bd, heckuva job.
Get over it, will you? Do you Repulicans know how foolish you sound? All during the pre-election process you were screamining “No Experience!” “We’ll be up the creek without a paddle if Obama’s elected because he knows NOTHING!!!” Now that he’s elected and is choosing EXPERIENCED people to be in his Cabinet and on his staff, you’re crying “FOUL!” “NO Fair! These are Clinton retreads!” And who should he hire — Shrub’s team? Unknowns? He’s hiring experienced people who served the President who left office with the biggest surplice in the history of our nation.
Why don’t you go take all your moral indignation and let it out over child abuse — they can use all the help they can get.
“I do have some sympathy for you at this point. You’re stuck with the argument, but you’re beginning to realize the horrible flaw of logic in it. You can’t make the case against the Democrats without demonstrating massive Republican incompetence as well. If it was the Democrats who did it, it was the Republicans (holding the levers of power) who failed to stop it.“
–The horrible flaw in logic is your attempt to provide moral equivalence between people who actively undermined and destroyed an economy with their irresponsible policies and those who tried, but failed, to stop them. That’s like saying the Secret Service was as morally corrupt and as much to blame as John Hinckley, Jr. because they failed to stop him from shooting President Reagan.
Please stop before you hurt yourself.
“because they failed to stop him from shooting President Reagan.“
Excellent. So the Secret Service should feel all virtuous and proud because they failed to protect Reagan from Hinckley? Really? My guess is that that’s not the way they felt.
So you’re sticking with the ‘Republicans are hopelessly incompetent at governing’ theory? Excellent. Embarrassing for you, but still…