Redstate

I actually felt rather good about Bob Gates, but after these endorsements I'm starting to worry.

www.thearmchairpolitician.com

Henry Kissinger?
Walter Cronkite?
Jim Webb?
Cindy Sheehan?
The Dixie Chicks?

And most importantly, what does the world's leading diplomatic authority Nobel laureate James Earl Carter think?

Crickets.

How am I supposed to know the real qualification of this nominee if I don't get the advice of experts?

(Henry was probably mad he didn't get the job. Walter was at a seance or something, channeling Ed Murrow. Jim Webb was busy fantasizing about young Vietnamese boys. Cindy Sheehan has been dropped like last night's prom date. And of course, the Dixie Chicks are busy recording their new album Don't Sing with Your Brain Empty, due out for the Winter Holiday Album Selling Season.)

--
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.

The worst part is that those endorsements are being touted by the White House. Which, last I checked, was still nominally in Republican hands even after Tuesday.

Yes, I know: Bush has to put this garbage out to convince Democrats and the public that Gates should sail through the Senate. It's still nauseating to read.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

Bush is daddy's boy, don't you know?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2446744,00.html

American and Iraqi officials have set a date for giving Iraq’s forces responsibility for security across the country.

Under a plan to be presented to the UN Security Council next month, the Iraqi Government would assume authority from coalition troops by the end of next year.

Only hours after Donald Rumsfeld was replaced as US Defence Secretary, American, British and Iraqi officials spoke openly about accelerating the handover process.

Baghdad made clear that it would use the Democrat victory in congressional midterm elections to push President Bush for concessions. Confidants of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that they hoped defeat would make Mr Bush more open to ideas that he had previously rejected.

All sides said that Mr Rumsfeld’s departure provided an opportunity to set a clearer timetable for withdrawing all foreign forces.

Haidar al-Abadi, an Iraqi MP and member of Nouri al- Maliki’s inner circle, said that the Government hoped to raise the issue of a timetable with the US Administration, which rejected it during negotiations in June. Iraqi officials believe that Washington will be more receptive now because the Admin istration is “weaker” and less stubborn.

But it would be possible now to make clear to the whole Middle East that US and British forces intended to leave Iraq and that the countdown had begun.

Mr al-Abadi said that a timetable would help to destroy the popular support of armed groups, who claim that American troops will never leave the country. Insurgent groups have repeatedly called for a date for a US withdrawal as their precondition for stopping attacks.

that was fast, that's all i have to say. i don't know if it's good, or bad, but if we play it right, it could help us in 2008... i just hope it's not going to blow up in our face. a slow withdrawl, if it happens, leaves our soldiers at greater risk.

Did you expect the administration to pick a fight with the Dems right after the election? Who would you have wanted them to appoint? Richard Perle, or perhaps John Bolton? Why not Darth Vader while their at it? Gates is a nice safe pick, which is what the administration needs right now.

A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli

We've seen what happened to Bolton in hearings. Even had the Dems not flipped the Senate, anyone sufficiently offensive-minded to replace Rumsfeld would have been pilloried in the Senate for failing to "plan ahead" for "withdrawal over the horizon". The choice has always been the same: keep Rumsfeld and endure the concomitant attacks, or place an amiable nonentity in charge of the GWOT. I guess we'll be seeing how option 2 works out.

I don't know if Robert Gates is the right man for the job, and am especially skeptical about his support for constructive engagement with the Iranian government. However my misgivings are allayed by the kind of people he gets worked up into a snit.

I don't give Gates any special credit for getting denonced by the usual suspects. What left an impression with me was his 1991 confirmation hearings for head of the CIA. I don't have a link, but I vividly recall testimony from disgruntled analysts whining about his earlier conduct while Deputy Director. They were indignant that Gates had stepped on their toes, when he insisted their reports on the Soviet Union's generally unaggressive intentions not omit evidence that weighed against the reports' conclusions, and Gates even had the insolence to have dissenters' opposing arguments included in the reports. I was amazed at the picture of bureaucratic fiefdoms within the Agency enforcing a party line, with a mentality resembling a university sociology department, where "freedom of speech" means the freedom to express a PC opinion without having anyone dispute your argument. I figured if Gates was the kind of guy to get those clowns so upset, he's the guy I wanted.

OK, that's just anecdotal evidence, but at least it shows me he's not the type who instinctively goes along to get along.

I'm not automatically dismayed that some liberals complimented Gates. It's hardly unheard of for advocates of opposing opinions to praise the abilities of someone they disagree with, though it's unfortunately less common now as more on the left view dissent as a psychiatric disorder.

Elections do have consequences, and we just got our butts kicked in this one. I think America is in greater danger because of the result, but the increased power of the Democrats is a reality that requires different tactics. If Gates is better able to deal constructively with some of the less rabid Democrats, that's an asset as long as it's not just a measure of his capitulation to their views. President Bush has to make the best of a bad situation for the next two years, and maybe Bob Gates is the right man for the circumstances.

This just in:

Many of our legislators in what once was the Republican congress are upset about Rumsfeld's resignation, too. They're upset that it didn't happen before the election:

"The White House said keeping the majority was a priority, but they failed to do the one thing that could have made a difference," one House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. "For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority."

Exit polling suggested that an overwhelming majority of voters disapproved of the administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and members and aides were frustrated with the timing of the announcement because an earlier resignation could have given them a boost on the campaign trail, they believe.

"They did this to protect themselves, but they couldn't protect us?" another Republican aide said yesterday.

I'll tell you this: between the complaints here at RedState and from Limbaugh that the President caved and should never have accepted Rumsfeld's resignation and the word from The Hill that "House Leadership Aides" think it should have happened before November 7th, I don't think anyone in this party is talking to anyone else in this party very well at all. With coordination and agreement like this on such important subjects, is it any wonder that we lost? We sound like a bunch of schizophrenics.

This just in:

To follow-up on lame Republicans not knowing how to work on coordination and agreement with one another. We sound like a bunch of schizophrenics.

"Some Republicans cautioned against an obstructionist approach.

"If we do that, shame on us," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio. "If the Democrats do what I would do if I were them and reach out with a list of things to do, and if we're depicted as standing on the outside trying to prevent that from happening, it would be terrible for the country. And it's stupid politics.""

This clueless Republican apparently will be the new Lincoln Chafee of the left wing media machine... it will be their "Rodney King" of the Republican party.

"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville

Bob Gates was the first in our government to hold that Gorbachev was a committed communist in a bind rather than a great reformer by choice. That he was able to distance himself from "popular consensus" and teach reality speaks very highly of him.

Recall what Bush said at the brief little presser yesterday: Rumsfled is staying on as SecDef until Gates is confirmed.

This puts the Dems in a hard place. Their disciples want him out as he is all things evil regarding Iraq (and US military activity generally). However, if they stonewall Gates, Enemy No. 1 continues to occupy his office in the Pentagon.

Of course, if they do confirm Gates, they will not have the chance to have Rumsfeld appear at their show trials as the acting SecDef.

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