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Here's MSNBC's FIrst Read:

GATES LIKELY TO REMAIN AT PENTAGON
Posted: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 4:44 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: Obama WH Transition
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski
One source familiar with the selection process tells NBC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will remain on the job at the Pentagon for at least a year. "That's been a done deal for sometime," according to the sources. "No other name has been seriously floated as a possible candidate."

The deal was sealed for Gates when former Marine Corps Candidate Jim Jones was mentioned as the probable candidate for National Security Adviser, and former Admiral Dennis Blair was named as the likely pick for Director of National Intelligence, according to one source.

"That's a dream team that Gates could clearly work with," the source said.

Two other sources involved or familiar with the process said, as of yesterday, Gates was all but certain.   

"It was the formula all along," according to one source, that Gates would stay in the Pentagon, retain a small number of his personal staff while a Democrat, appointed by Obama as Deputy Defense Secretary, would put together the remainder of the top staff.

According to officials close to Gates, to avoid being labeled a "lame duck," he asked that a specific timetable not be attached to his term, but something more loosely defined, such as "under 4 years."

Like I said on another thread, sometimes I'm inclined to think he was the wall that kept them out of more disasters.

And, he's in the position to set right his part in Iran/Contra by doing a backchanel thing w/Iran. In comes Clinton to set the table, with Obama sealing a deal.

Who knows?

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Link

I don't like that. There needs to be more of a post-imperial type approach.

So you want to drop a new "post-imperial" SecDef in to replace the guy whose competence and experience made it abundantly clear that Rumsfeld was an inept buffoon?
Do you think that Gates will take his orders from Cheney or something?
What's your beef?

I was hoping that Nancy Pelosi would get this job.

Depends on what 'qualifications' are being judged, now doesn't it?

So...WSJ reporting Karzia in Afgan is impatient. Just the intro says: "Will THIS war never cease?"

There's something for Gates to think about.

Duke Stratosphere wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Link

I don't like that. There needs to be more of a post-imperial type approach.

Will having Hillary be Secretary of State be post-imperial enough for you?

Nah, I think she'll be mostly okay. Secretary of State isn't the same as Secretary of Defense. She's basically America's ambassador to the world, and I think she'll be a good one.

I think Beinart's analysis of anything has left much to be desired for some time. In the sense of being on target or not. He's been dealing in FU's, iirc. That article sounds like much huffing and puffing.

It disgusts me that the very security of the nation is cloaked in reading tea leaves as signals and cloaked messages in double reverse twists TO THE RIGHT.

I hope he's right this time, though.

ummm....not be ignorant, or challenging, but how exactly would you describe the 'current policy' that the new Iraq desk will continue.

Just because I'm interested in what it is (long term) today. I don't have an answer on that. Do you?

edit:

The rest of what you say about treachery from the right is the definition of the "Problem of Centrists". Which is why I've made mockery of that kind of 'moderate' view. It only ends the same as you outline.

I think the O'Bama theme music -a lovers song by a blind piano player - is a centrist choice. Who doesn't love the dancable beat and upbeat verse?

Contrasted with another possibility from that era Motown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKCsUWx-QoA

Last edited by daemon (2008-11-28 7:26 am)

Consarnit, Rib, now there has to be a Jeeves and Wooster reunion show so I can hear Hugh Laurie animatedly intone

Ribtorus Wodehouse wrote:

"...as a sort of Norquistian neo-con wet dream."

Plus, that entire region may be slouching toward bedlam. India/Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran. House of Saud. Bethlehem's homeland state.

Can Biden be the guide who defangs the radicals around Gates? Streamline decisions around them?

Where's China?

daemon wrote:

Plus, that entire region may be slouching toward bedlam. India/Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran. House of Saud. Bethlehem's homeland state.

Can Biden be the guide who defangs the radicals around Gates? Streamline decisions around them?

Where's China?

The VP nosing around in Pentagon matters; now that's continuity! Fire fought with fire, as it were?

China's got its hands full, but Its most important role as far as the west is concerned will be to finance.

Your inference is as always slap on the button and leading by a length in the final furlong, Rib!

And, I'd call this chattering laying groundwork of the sort Ribs described

Like so much of what takes place at the UN, the obsession with demonizing Israel and extolling the Palestinians is grotesque and Orwellian.

The Boston Globe's resident neocon Jeff Jacoby's OpEd today.