Robert Gates Agrees to Remain Sec. of Defense Under Obama

[StillUnknown]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15986.html

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Barack Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state, officials said.

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, former Marine commandant and commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, will be named national security adviser, the officials said.

The national security adviser heads the National Security Council, which is the part of the White House structure that deals with foreign policy, and varies in influence from presidency to presidency. Jones insisted on – and got – a commanding role, the sources said.

Democrats familiar with the national-security event early next week said they also expect James Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, to be named deputy secretary of State; Susan Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser on the campaign, to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and a veteran of the NSC, Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be named the director of national intelligence.

[Predicto]

In before the haters pile on and yell "where's the change?!?!" even though this is exactly what they wanted Obama to do.

[Burgold]

Good. I like Gates and the way he seems to be willing to do the right thing regardless of the PR consequences. His handling of Walter Reed impressed me.

[nonniey]

This is good news. I've been impressed so far with how Obama is handling his appointments and maybe he won't push the progressive agenda as much as I feared. (Note one thing I worry is that Wesley Clark will be eligible to replace Gates in 2010 - he is one person that should never again be allowed anywhere near a military decision making process).

[RyansRangers]

No Change here is a great thing.... Gates has done a commendable job

[SteveFromYellowstone]

Good move. Hopefully Obama keeps making decisions that he thinks will benefit the country and not just for the sake of change. I like what I'm seeing so far.

[StillUnknown]

Good. I like Gates and the way he seems to be willing to do the right thing regardless of the PR consequences. His handling of Walter Reed impressed me.

his handling of Walter Reed was impressive

[EersSkins05]

Robert Gates is one of the (very) few members of the Bush Administration that has legitimately earned respect from both sides of the aisle. He's an asset to the next administration, whoever it would have been.

[USS Redskins]

This kind of makes up for that Hillary deal... god, why did he do that???

The Clintons are nothing but a couple of snakes.

[Koolblue13]

In before the haters pile on and yell "where's the change?!?!" even though this is exactly what they wanted Obama to do.

I just don't understand. So, the left is happy he is continuing with the same (or a very similar) team and that is equating to change, but when the non BO supporters point out that is happening, the are wrong?

[China]

My father, who is a lifelong democrat, and voted for/supported Obama sent me an e-mail this morning which I found interesting:

Souring Quickly on Obama

Scanning the Post this morning it showed a cartoon of Obama calling on the Wall Street types that have wrecked the economy to save it, an editorial saying that Obama had to quit saying we were all going to have to sacrifice without saying what he was going to cut, and an article about keeping the Republicans in charge of Defense.

Apparently Obama's big message recently other than we have to move now even though I can't do anything because Bush is President is that he will cut the budget to pay for his big new priorities such as rebuilding the infrastructure and improving health care coverage. And, he picked the head of the CBO to be the head of OMB yesterday to take care of both the budget and his new priorities.

Now, let's face it, to cut the budget there are realistically only two places where there are significant pots of money - defense and entitlement programs such as medicare, social security, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc. Do you think Gates would stay on at Defense if Obama hadn't promised that he wouldn't significantly cut the Defense budget? Do you think you are going to be able to cut food stamps and unemployment with rising unemployment rates (and an article today about how food stamp usage is at an all time high)?

The man is either a fool, ignorant, or a liar. Take your pick, I don't like any of the choices.