Gates As Obama Defense Chief: Another Centrist Obama Administration Sign

The clearly leaked news that Bush administration Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will likely stay on in the same post in President Barack Obama’s administration is yet one more sign that the incoming Obama administration will be centrist and will put a high premium on bipartisan cooperation.

Just as the soon-to-be-announced selection of Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State sent a message, so does the selection of Gates, a longtime Washington veteran who served four Presidents of both political parties. In fact, it sends several messages:

MESSAGE ONE: Obama will chart a centrist course and won’t be deterred by brickbats from the right or left. Rather than choose someone who is known for calling for a pullout from Iraq ASAP, he picked Gates who also cannot be confused with the man he replaced in that post, Donald Rumsfeld. Indeed, some press reports since Gates took over the Bush administration job have painted him at odds with some Bush administration policy tendencies behind-the-scenes. In picking Gates Obama (again) signaled that he has no problem taking positions that may not be popular with the Democratic party’s left wing but will try to do it in a way that brings his opponents on board.

MESSAGE TWO: On policy issues, Obama is in an alliance now with several Republicans closely identified with the first President George Bush’s administration. Bush 41′s policy was formulated by so-called “realists,” who strongly believed in coalition building, the value of diplomacy and the traditional way of formulating foreign policy, which is looking at pluses and minuses, a host of scenarios and making judgments based on that rather than on more ideological or theoretical grounds. Some of them publicly broke with the present Bush administration. Gates is just one Bush 41 associate now linked to Obama’s present foreign policy deliberations.

MESSAGE THREE: Even though Americans debate the wisdom of entering into Iraq, Gates’ presence symbolizes a continuity and deliberate wind-down in the Iraq war in a way to safeguard the “realists” calculations on what needs to be done and how it needs to be done in the U.S.’ national interest.

MESSAGE FOUR: It’s a signal again of how Obama seems to seriously study an issue and reach a decision even if some clamor for a different outcome — reaching it in a way that suggests the weighing of pluses and minuses versus decisions made quickly or capriciously.

MESSAGE FIVE: It suggests the Obama team is taking into consideration how cabinet picks can also help bolster support in Congress. By picking Gates, Obama will have some built-in GOP support and Gates is also highly respected among many Democrats.

Of course, until it is announced, the Gates pick remains a “likely.” But press reports suggest it is close to a certainty at this point. Press and weblog opinion indicate this remains a vital pick and that the symbolism of keeping Gates on is seen in differing ways. A sampling of opinion:

MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA:

–The New York Times:

President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in his post, a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party, Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday.

Mr. Obama’s advisers were nearing a formal agreement with Mr. Gates to stay on for perhaps a year, the Democrats said, and they expected to announce the decision as early as next week, along with other choices for the national security team. The two sides have been working out details on how Mr. Gates would wield authority in a new administration.

The move will give the new president a defense secretary with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as experience with foreign leaders around the world and respect among the senior military officer corps. But two years after President Bush picked him to lead the armed forces, Mr. Gates will now have to pivot from serving the commander in chief who started the Iraq war to serving one who has promised to end it.

–The Chicago Tribune:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to serve in President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet, advisors said Tuesday, setting up the unusual situation in which a wartime Pentagon chief remains to work under a president who has condemned the previous administration’s policies.

An official close to the Obama transition team said it was likely Gates would be named Defense secretary when the president-elect begins to unveil his national security team in announcements expected next week.

–The Politico:

David Axelrod, the incoming White House senior adviser, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”: “The president-elect was clear throughout the campaign that when he became president, that he was going to give the secretary of defense a new mission, and that mission was going to be to wind down our involvement. Nothing has changed.”

Axelrod said Obama enjoys and invites strong opinions and there will be no “potted plants” in his Cabinet.

Gates has been negotiating with Obama emissaries over his deputies — some will be retained, and some new — and how the Pentagon will be run.

The selection of a member of President George W. Bush’s inner circle allows Obama to deliver on his promise of a bipartisan Cabinet, even though Gates has an intelligence background and has not been an active Republican.

The appointment has substantial advantages for Obama, who now can keep his pledge of drawing down troops in Iraq with the aid of an architect of the Bush administration’s successful troop “surge” strategy.

The presence of Gates also will help finesse Obama’s 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.

–The LA Times’ Andrew Malcolm:

Although Gates is a registered independent, he has served several Republican administrations, and keeping him would fulfill, at least partially, an Obama pledge to construct a bipartisan administration.

Such a move, if confirmed, could also incite the Democratic left, which had based much of its support on Obama’s slowly melting pledge to withdraw American combat troops within 16 months and start immediately.

Gates has been a loyal steward of the surge, which during the political season Obama long appeared reluctant to admit was a success.

–The Washington Post offers some interesting in details about how this might work, and about Gates’ true preferences:

“The betting money is heading that direction, and it’s possible it is a done deal,” said one source close to the team. “I think it is going that way — many do — including some who are surprised.”

Some sources described a “rolling transition,” where Gates would remain during an overlapping changeover of key political appointees at the Pentagon. Others said he could remain in the job indefinitely.

Under both scenarios, most of the deputies serving under Gates at the Pentagon would be replaced, the sources said.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell yesterday did not confirm that Gates had agreed to stay, but reiterated that Gates had never ruled out the option. “He has deliberately never precluded the possibility of continuing to serve if needed,” said Morrell. “It would be out of character to do so now.”

Here’s a sampling of differing views from weblogs:

–Where Are My Keys:

Yeah, keeping Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense won’t cause too much of a stir to the far-Leftie-anti-war crowd, will it?

Remind me how keeping the guy who is in charge of all things Bush war-related is “change”? And isn’t interesting how now that Obama has given the nod to Gates, suddenly Gates is “the right man for the job”?

Who’s next up, Rumsfeld?

–Hot Air’s Allahpundit:

If any Bush cabinet member deserves to be held over, it’s Gates, but I’m ambivalent all the same. Will he have any major responsibilities beyond leaving Republican fingerprints on a withdrawal from Iraq?

…“The nomination of Mr Gates and General Jones will anger the anti-war wing of the Democratic party. They will quickly have to come terms with the fact that Mr Obama appears intent on governing as a muscular foreign policy realist.” Give The One credit: The only pick thus far that’s even arguably filibuster-worthy is Holder.

–Ron Beasley:

Obama needs to concentrate on reinventing the economy. He needs experienced and respected people to handle the Pentagon and extracting us for the quagmire that is Iraq. I suspect theat Gates has more in common with with Obama than he did with the administration of George W. Bush.

–Poligazette:

Not that I’m sure anybody is surprised by this at this point (perhaps except the far-left hoping Obama might change his mind), but it is looking increasingly likely that current Defense Secretary Robert Gates will hold his job for at least another year, according to CNN…Some on the are undoubtedly getting a sense of buyer’s remorse right now, but I’ve no doubt Obama will throw them a bone from time to time. Which bones he’ll dish out are to be determined, I suppose.

–Talk Left’s Chris Bowers:

This should be an open and shut case. If there was one message that Obama ran on loudly, clearly, and indisputably, it is that he was going to bring “change” to Washington, D.C. If Gates were kept on as Secretary of Defense, it apparently would also mean that all of his top advisors would also stay on, and that it all happened because long-time D.C. operatives said it should. Keeping the same guy and all of his advisors at the behest of old establishment types is about as far from change as possible.

Secretary of Defense is the big enchilada. Arguably, due to the vast percentage of federal spending it receives, it is more important than all other cabinet secretaries combined. The President may be Commander in Chief, but it is the Secretary of Defense who is decides how most federal revenue is spent. We need change in the Department of Defense, and keeping Gates along with his entire team of advisors and assistants doesn’t fit the bill.

–Politics of Scrabble:

For those folks who were gun shy over the idea of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, the news about Robert Gates staying on as Secretary of Defense must provide at least some partial respite. Not only has Gates’ demonstrated incredible intelligence and ability in the job, but he has the added bonus of not being a party loyalist. Gates’ freelancer cred has obviously appeal to folks like me, but I think it also translates practically into a Secretary of Defense who tries to do the right thing in all circumstances and not what the Party or ideology dictates. When it comes to national security, unfettered analysis is the golden egg and Gates seems to a a goose capable of laying.

–The Tribune’s The Swamp blog adds this:

The move would maintain continuity at the Pentagon at a critical time since Obama has pledged to start reducing combat troops in Iraq as soon as he’s inaugurated and add more U.S troops to Afghanistan where the Taliban has significantly increased its attacks.

In addition, it would leave a widely respected manager at Defense at a time when the new Obama Administration is likely to be seeking spending cuts, including discontinuing some weapons systems in order to offset the expected spending on fiscal stimulus.

Gates is widely credited with bringing accountability to the Pentagon, firing generals who failed to properly oversee Walter Read Army Medical Center or the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

He also won plaudits early on from Democrats on Capitol Hill for answering their questions directly that he wouldn’t recommend invading Iran, this coming at a time when others in the Bush Administration were sounding very belligerent towards the Middle Eastern theocracy.

–Werner Patels:

President-elect Barack Obama has promised all along that his government would be an inclusive, not a divisive or partisan, one, and he’s delivered on the promise by keeping George Bush’s secretary of defence Robert Gates on his team.

–Go to THE HERETIK for his as usual distinctive take on this.

–John Seiler:

So much for Obama’s promise to change the way things work in Washington, District of Criminals.

It just was reported that Robert Gates will stay on as Defense Commissar. What happened to Obama’s promise to get us out of Iraq? Gates is the architect of the current escalation in Iraq.

Then there’s Hillary. Obama beat her in the primaries because Democrats rebuffed her call to stay in Iraq, while embracing Obama’s call to get out. She’s going to be Foreign Affairs Commissar.

….The Obama administration is such a small departure from the recent past that we might as well have canceled the election, saved a couple billion in campaign costs, and let Bush keep running things.

Meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses…

--The Danger Room:

As predicted, Robert Gates will be staying on as Defense Secretary in the new Obama administration.

Count me as psyched. I’ve been of fan of Gates’, for quite some time.

–Mathew Yglesias:

I would only reiterate that I think it’s very possible to overstate the notion that keeping Gates on is in tension with Obama’s record of opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Bush’s pet war was viewed with a great deal of skepticism by the realist faction in the GOP, and Obama has long hinted around at admiration for the realpolitik of the Powell/Scowcroft school of Republicans. In many ways it’s the rapprochement with the liberal hawk faction within the Democratic Party that’s a more novel development, though Ilan Goldenberg rightly notes that all three non-neocon perspectives on national security policy are sort of converging at the moment. Perhaps, then, this is the right way to understand Obama’s team — as a kind of grand coalition of non-neo perspectives aimed at steering us out of the shoals into which Bush/Cheney policies have marooned the ship of state.

–As usual, The Washington Note’s Steve Clemons must be read in FULL. Here is a small part of what he writes:

I had moved close to the view that Gates should go. My thinking at the time was that Gates played a vital role “Out-Cheneying Cheney” in the last couple of years of G.W. Bush’s term, but that his skill at crunching out the ambiguity in the national security decision making process that Cheney and Rumsfeld exploited would not be necessary in the Obama White House ecosystem.

In other words, one needed Gates to be a constraint on Bush, but why would Obama want to run the risk that Gates would constrain his team?

After speaking to some other national security policy experts very close to Bob Gates and General Brent Scowcroft, I changed course and began to see the value of Gates staying at DoD.

My hunch is that Gates wants a chance to make the kind of leaps in the Middle East I have been writing about for some time. He wants to try and push Iran-US relations into a constructive direction. He wants to change the game in Afghanistan — and the answer will not be a military-dominant strategy. He wants to try and stabilize Iraq in a negotiated, confidence building process that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and other regional forces. And he wants to support a big push on Israel-Palestine peace and reconfigure relations between much of the Arab League and Israel.

Read it in its entirety.

–Luke Ford:

I feared he would be a disaster. Instead, everything he has said and done since the election has been responsible and moderate. He chooses centrists to the most important posts in his cabinet. He’s likely to ask Robert Gates to stay on for at least a year as Defense Secretary. He’s governing to be a president to all Americans, not just those who voted for him.

I certainly prefer watching and listening to Obama than the old-as-death John McCain

–Stop The ACLU:

I’ve been giving Obama a hard time on his administration picks being Clintonites, lobbyists, and everything but the change his mantra promised. I’m not gonna do that on this one. I think it is a smart move to keep Gates on. We are on the verge of victory in Iraq and a change in the middle of everything that is going on in the war front could damage all that success. Keeping Gates on for at least another year gives a good window of opportunity for a smoother, more effective transition.

–My DD’s Todd Beaton:

Another factor at play here is that, because of statements made by then Senator Obama during his campaign, the media is expecting the cabinet to be multi-partisan and is licking their chops to call President-elect Obama out on a broken promise; keeping Gates on will fulfill the promise for the moment.

I’d certainly prefer to see Gates canned as both a very real and a symbolic closing of the door on the Bush years, particularly on foreign policy, but I’m also well aware that Obama is using this transition period and his cabinet appointments to build up goodwill among his critics and the skeptical establishment. As he continues to build upon the significant political capital he collected on November 4th, one of my concerns is at what point after Jan. 20th does he actually intend to spend it. The downside of Robert Gates is tolerable as long as it wins us something much more valuable in the longrun. As of now I’m willing to give President-elect Obama the benefit of the doubt, he’s earned it, but my patience is not limitless.

–Right Thinking From The Left Coast:

Whatever you might think of his politics, Obama seems to want serious people for his cabinet. It’s a welcome departure from Bush’s yes-men.

–Michelle Malkin:

Hey, remember that campaign line Barack Obama used incessantly throughout the campaign — you know, the one deriding McCain as a Bush clone and mocking a McCain win as “four more years of Bush?”

You remember, right?

The One: “I can take 4 more weeks of McCain’s attacks, but America can’t take 4 more years of failed McCain\Bush” policies!

Well, ummmm, ahhh, never mind.

Now, it looks like continuity is not such an evil thing. Obama’s keeping on Bush’s SecDef, Robert Gates.

HOPEANDCHANGE!

–Daily Kos:

More fuel for the belief that even Democrats think Democrats are weak on defense and only Republicans can serve as Secretary of Defense. If Gates stays the full four years, it would mean that from 1953-2013, a Republican will have held the SecDef post for 51 1/2 of 60 years.

Not all Obama’s advisers are happy about the choice.

–Don Surber:

The new president gives the Surrender Left the Gates.

I was not going to comment on every appointee by President Obama, but his decision to keep Robert Gates as secretary of defense is hilarious.

The antiwar left is livid as they discover that they have been had by a Chicago pol.

…President Obama knows better. He’s commander in chief now. He does not want to be Jimmy Carter. He kept Gates, and his early supporters are going to have to eat another heaping helping of crow.

–John Amato:

I think most of us expected this pick. He’s got his Republican now. Hopefully, Gates will be replaced once Obama is comfortably settled in as President. And don’t be fooled by the conservative talking heads that cheer on his moves. It’s all designed to tweak us and I bet behind the scenes all the David Brooks types are laughing, trying so desperate to be relevant again.

–Jules Crittenden:

Obama, acknowledging his debt of gratitude to George Bush, will keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense…. Who better to carry this forward but the people who got us to this point? A Saddam-free U.S.-allied Iraq, with al-Qaeda on the run, and the same counterinsurgency artiste who ran them out of Iraq now free to go to work on Afghanistan. Stay the course, and try not to screw up Iran, Obama, everything will be good. Just like I told you.

But is it really necessary to rub it in?

–Greg Sargent:

Ironically, in one sense the economic meltdown made this key decision easier. Just as it did during the campaign, the relentless focus on the economic crisis has to some degree reduced the intensity of attention being paid to the critical national security decisions that lie ahead.

And so, whatever the substantive merits or demerits of the Gates pick, the meltdown allows for the argument that it makes sense to preserve temporary continuity at the Pentagon in order to enable the incoming President to devote his full attention to the fixing the economy.

–Wake Up America:

The stomach continues to churn as the “progressives” howl, piss and moan and basically continue to whine about everything Obama is already doing before he even takes office.

Those people are incapable of being happy for more than a day or two before finding something to stay angry about huh?

–Talk Left’s Big Tent Democrat (always a must read for all political junkies of both parties or no party):

Unlike a lot of folks, I respect Bush 41ers like Gates. My one problem with this is that it sends the message that Dems can’t do Defense. I would prefer General Wes Clark at Defense, but Congress would have to do a fix for that to happen (as a retired military officer, Clark is ineligible for the Defense post for 10 years after retirement. He retired in 2000.) I have no obvious eligible candidates for the job.

–Wonkette:

So there’s your Token Republican cabinet member! Now Barry’s free to name Susan Sarandon to head Veterans Affairs, or whatever he wants. As for Gates: he could be a horrible warlord for all we know, but the most important thing is that he’s not fussy, and that’s a rare trait in this egocentric town of whiny bitches. And Gates even broke Bush administration decorum by exhibiting flairs of nuanced thinking every now and then. He and Obama will be best friends.

–LT Nixon:

The current SECDEF, Robert Gates, has been hailed as competently running our counterinsurgency conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The loudest opposition has been from the anti-war fanatics in Code Pink, who could not be reached for comment at this time, since they are busy committing treason in Iran. The other reason for opposition seems to be that putting a Republican in charge of the DoD will show that Democrats are weak on national security.

….For the record, Gates is a registered Independent, and I’d wager most Americans are more interested in successfully stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan than the John Wayne-like branding of the Democratic party.

–Scared Monkeys:

The fact of the matter is that keeping Robert Gates is a smart move given the present situation that the US finds itself in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and the tenuous situation with Iran, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela. That being said, we agree with Stop the ACLU that we won’t criticize Obama for the choice of Gates; however, we will criticize Obama for his pandering promises of change only to know that no such change could ever have occurred and the US be safe or Obama ever hoping to have a second term. Obama did nothing more than say anything to get elected and then deal with the consequences. Sounds like a typical politician to me.

–Ed Kilgore has an extensive post. A tiny taste 4 U:

While Barack Obama’s appointments so far have produced some unhappiness among progressives, and some second-guessing from various quarters, it’s nothing compared to the criticism that will erupt if he, as is rumored, keeps Defense Secretary Robert Gates in place.

This is obviously a pretty momentous decision. As Chris Bowers points out, aside from questions of war and peace and Iraq and Afghanistan, DoD is far and away the largest federal agency, with vast spending powers. The direction of DoD is also at the heart of the case for “change” that attracted many progressives to Obama in the first place.

Obama could, of course, try to reduce the sting by limiting Gates to a short tenure, giving way in six months or so perhaps to a deputy close to the new administration and its thinking (e.g., Richard Danzig). But making the appointment strictly transitional would also reduce its utility as a symbolic gesture of continuity and bipartisanship. And in any event, Gates is reportedly balking at any deal that would deny him the right to retain his own circle of high-level staff, which definitely includes people antagonistic to significant change in the Pentagon.

Moreover, on a broader front, if Obama demurs on a reappointment of Gates, he’ll need to find another way to redeem his frequent campaign pledge to get beyond partisan gridlock in Washington and govern in a bipartisan, or at least post-partisan, manner.

Some Obama supporters never took this talk seriously, and would just as soon see him forget about including any Republicans in his Cabinet.

Read it in full.

–Neptunus Lex:

Smart in its own right, what with one victory to be consolidated and another remaining to be won. It’ll also privately fash all the right people, the folks one degree removed from the stilt-puppet set – previously so committed to Change! – especially when it comes to foreign policy. Many of whom will doubtless wave this all away as a cost of doing business. But not all of them, no. Not all.

The more things Change, yah?