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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Financial Times and CNN. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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R. Gates joined the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence in 1968. He served as a low- to mid-level professional intel officer under several presidents.
Then R. Reagan's DCI, William J. Casey, elevated him to executive responsibility at CIA. First as Deputy Director for Intelligence. Then as Casey's second in command at the Agency. Later, he served the Reagan/H.W. Bush Administrations as Deputy National Security Advisor and then Director of Central Intelligence.
The Democratic Senate bitterly attacked him in hearings and thus blocked the Reagan/H.W. Bush Administration's first attempt to make him DCI. Later, H.W. Bush nominated him and this time the Senate confirmed him as DCI.
B. Clinton did not select him to participate in his govt at all. Indeed, I know Democrats who foam at the mouth when his name comes up, blaming him for Afghanistan and Iran-Contra and accusing him of murder and the usual leftists' allegation-driven discourse. Do you remember BLT's reaction to the W. Bush Administration's naming him SecDef in 2006...?
In any case, when W. Bush needed a reliable, professional moderate conservative at Defense, he tapped Gates, who remained loyal to his father and returned to Washington only reluctantly and because the President said he needed him.
He is not a partisan or a politician, true. But he is a Republican -- the kind the media and many here do not like to admit exist: not only a president of a university, but also a non-dogmatic, level-headed Republican who does very well in Republican administrations, who supports Republican presidents, and who excels in national-security matters head-and-shoulders above almost anyone the Democrats could possibly field... |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| But he isn't a Republican. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:24 am Post subject: |
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War of assertions. The Guardian calls R. Gates a Republican.
He is just as much a Republican as C. Rice is.
And he is just as much a Republican as M. Albright and R. Holbrooke are Democrats.
Professionals in these advisory positions do not always run for office and declare their partisan affiliation so outrightly as B. Richardson, for example. But I assure you, as a general rule, you can see their partisan affiliation by who they serve.
By the way, do you have him confirming your assertion somewhere? "I am not a Republican," for example? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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And let the honeymoon begin...
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| ASSESSING THE emerging Obama administration is a bit like judging the design of the elephant without the trunk or tail. The president-elect's choices for some key posts, notably at the Defense Department, have yet to be leaked; few of the others have been formally announced. Nonetheless, an outline is taking shape, and it is encouraging in a number of ways... |
Note, Mises, that this author sees R. Gates's possible remaining in the cabinet as B. Obama's fulfilling "the promised bipartisanship."
Washington Post |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
And let the honeymoon begin...
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| ASSESSING THE emerging Obama administration is a bit like judging the design of the elephant without the trunk or tail. The president-elect's choices for some key posts, notably at the Defense Department, have yet to be leaked; few of the others have been formally announced. Nonetheless, an outline is taking shape, and it is encouraging in a number of ways... |
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I think we're seeing a double restoration here.
Restoration A is from the Bush ideological choices of 2000, from its arrogance and heedless ideological bent, particularly its emphasis on reshaping the world anew.
Restoration B is from the gender/race quotas of the '60s, where slots were filled to represent a certain minority (yes, we saw this in Bush's administration as well, with Powell AND THEN Rice at State; both of whom are mediocre at the position at best).
But whether these individuals, collectively and individually, have what it takes to govern is another question. It all looks good on paper, but we have not seen the drama yet play out. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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I agree.
I remain uncertain on a number of fronts. But I have high hopes for E. Holder at Justice. I think he above all the others can restore much of what we lost under W. Bush. And closing Guant�namo, which I expect rather quickly, will cause immense perceptual-psychological changes. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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National Command Authority/NSC leadership:
President B. Obama
Vice-President J. Biden
National Security Advisor General J. Jones, USMC (Ret.)
Secretary of Homeland Security J. Napolitano
Secretary of State H. Clinton
Secretary of Defense R. Gates (?) |
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Key cabinet secretaries and related appointments:
Secretary of Treasury T. Geithner
Secretary of Commerce B. Richardson
Secretary of Health and Human Services/Health Czar T. Daschle
Ambassador to the United Nations ________
Attorney-General E. Holder, Jr.
FBI Director ________ |
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Key White House staff:
Chief of Staff R. Emanuel
White House Counsel G. Craig
Senior Advisor to the President D. Axelrod
Senior Advisor to the President V. Jarrett
Senior Advisor to the President P. Rouse
Office of Management and Budget Director P. Orszag
Deputy Chief of Staff J. Messina
Deputy Chief of Staff M. Sutphen
Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs P. Schiliro
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
Communications Director Ellen Moran
Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer |
| Quote: |
Key national-security/defense advisors and leadership:
Director of National Intelligence ________
CIA Director ________
Secretary of the Navy ________
Secretary of the Army ________
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ________
Field commanders ________ |
Obama Administration Transition Team -- Press Release
CNN Reports |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:13 am Post subject: |
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National Command Authority/NSC leadership:
President B. Obama
Vice-President J. Biden
National Security Advisor General J. Jones, USMC (Ret.)
Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.)
Secretary of Homeland Security J. Napolitano
Secretary of State H. Clinton
Secretary of Defense R. Gates (?) |
| Quote: |
Key cabinet secretaries and related appointments:
Secretary of Treasury T. Geithner
Secretary of Commerce B. Richardson
Secretary of Health and Human Services/Health Czar T. Daschle
Ambassador to the United Nations ________
Attorney-General E. Holder, Jr.
FBI Director ________ |
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Key White House staff:
Chief of Staff R. Emanuel
White House Counsel G. Craig
Senior Advisor to the President D. Axelrod
Senior Advisor to the President V. Jarrett
Senior Advisor to the President P. Rouse
Office of Management and Budget Director P. Orszag
Deputy Chief of Staff J. Messina
Deputy Chief of Staff M. Sutphen
Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs P. Schiliro
Press Secretary R. Gibbs
Communications Director E. Moran
Deputy Communications Director D. Pfeiffer |
| Quote: |
Key national-security/defense advisors and leadership:
CIA Director ________
Secretary of the Navy ________
Secretary of the Army ________
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ________
Field commanders ________ |
D. Blair commanded PacFleet and directed IDA. And this report claims he is a paramilitary-ops thinker...
CNN Reports |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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No more question mark on the SecDef and we have an ambassador to the United Nations...
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National Command Authority/NSC leadership:
President B. Obama
Vice-President J. Biden
National Security Advisor General J. Jones, USMC (Ret.)
Director of National Intelligence Admiral D. Blair (Ret.)
Secretary of Homeland Security J. Napolitano
Secretary of State H. Clinton
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates |
| Quote: |
Key cabinet secretaries and related appointments:
Secretary of Treasury T. Geithner
Secretary of Commerce B. Richardson
Secretary of Health and Human Services/Health Czar T. Daschle
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice
Attorney-General E. Holder, Jr.
FBI Director ________ |
| Quote: |
Key White House staff:
Chief of Staff R. Emanuel
White House Counsel G. Craig
Senior Advisor to the President D. Axelrod
Senior Advisor to the President V. Jarrett
Senior Advisor to the President P. Rouse
Office of Management and Budget Director P. Orszag
Deputy Chief of Staff J. Messina
Deputy Chief of Staff M. Sutphen
Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs P. Schiliro
Press Secretary R. Gibbs
Communications Director E. Moran
Deputy Communications Director D. Pfeiffer |
| Quote: |
Key national-security/defense advisors and leadership:
CIA Director ________
Secretary of the Navy ________
Secretary of the Army ________
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ________
Field commanders ________ |
| Quote: |
Several officials close to President-elect Barack Obama's transition tell CNN that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to stay on the job for at least the first year of the new administration.
One source called it "all but a done deal" that the announcement could come as early as next week... |
CNN Reports
ABC News |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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Still on track for Monday's announcements...
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WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama is planning to nominate at least three key members of his national security team at an event in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, including Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, according to two Democratic officials.
The officials said Obama is also expected to confirm that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post and naming retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser at the White House.
The officials said that after much contemplation, Jones officially agreed to take the job in the past few days.
All of the selections are hardly a surprise after weeks of fevered speculation.
In fact, they're such an open secret that retiring Republican Sen. John Warner, a veteran member of the Armed Services Committee, released a statement Saturday night praising all three nominees before were named at Monday's rollout.
"The triumvirate of Gates, Clinton and Jones to lead Obama's 'national security team' instills great confidence at home and abroad and further strengthens the growing respect for the president-elect's courage and ability to exercise sound judgment in selecting the 'best and the brightest' to implement our nation's security policies," Warner said. |
CNN Reports |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| But he isn't a Republican. |
| Quote: |
| Gates said he has not registered with a political party, but considers himself a Republican, and noting that, until Monday, all of his senior appointments had been under Republican presidents. |
CNN Reports |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:44 am Post subject: |
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Far left and its ideological purity testing pressured/forced B. Obama's transition team to drop the president-elect's top CIA choice.
The President-elect's problem: how to appoint a qualified CIA director and staff when his more radical supporters would rather simply see the CIA totally shut down and not led at all...
| Quote: |
Was he pushed?
Former CIA official John Brennan, once considered the top choice to serve as CIA director in President-elect Barack Obama's administration, was pressured by the Obama transition team to pull his name from consideration, according to friends and former intelligence associates.
Brennan's withdrawal, offered in a Nov. 25 letter to Obama, came after liberal bloggers mounted an opposition campaign against his possible appointment. They said he was tainted by his service in the CIA at a time when the agency was employing coercive interrogation methods, including "waterboarding," on detainees.
But friends and former colleagues of Brennan's say it's wrong to suggest he backed down in response to the bloggers' criticism. "John is not someone who walks away from a fight," said a longtime colleague, "and he wouldn't want anyone to think that."
These associates pin the blame for Brennan's withdrawal squarely on the Obama team. "They pulled the plug on him," said one former intelligence official. Brennan himself declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the Obama transition team, asking to remain anonymous, denied that the Obama team abandoned Brennan. "The decision [to withdraw his name] was his," the spokesperson said.
Among Brennan's critics were 200 psychologists who signed a mass letter to Obama, saying Brennan's appointment to a senior intelligence position would "alienate those who opposed torture under the Bush administration." The psychologists cited Brennan's service as a senior CIA official under former agency Director George Tenet, who approved coercive interrogation methods, plus interviews Brennan gave in which he appeared to stop short of explicitly rejecting those methods.
In his letter to Obama, Brennan vigorously rejected the criticism, saying he was not involved "in the decision-making process for any of these controversial policies and actions." Brennan stated that he had actually opposed many Bush administration intelligence policies as well as the decision to go to war in Iraq, and he complained that his critics regarded such opposition as "immaterial."
Nevertheless, he withdrew his name. "The challenges ahead of our Nation are too daunting, and the role of the CIA too critical, for there to be any distraction from the vital work that lays ahead," he wrote.
Brennan's 25-year service in the CIA included stints as a station chief in Saudi Arabia, chief of staff to Tenet, and first director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He left the CIA in 2005. After Obama's victory in the presidential election, Brennan was one of the leaders of the intelligence transition team for the incoming administration.
In a statement released after Brennan requested that his name be withdrawn, Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Brennan "has served our nation with honor and is a man of talent and integrity." She said the president-elect "accepts his decision to withdraw from consideration for a position in the intelligence community, but he is grateful for John's continuing assistance as a valuable member of our transition team."
Meanwhile, Brennan has continued to carry out transition responsibilities for the Obama team.
"Everyone here has a ton of respect for him," said the Obama transition spokesperson. |
NPR Reports |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Far left and its ideological purity testing pressured/forced B. Obama's transition team to drop the president-elect's top CIA choice.
The President-elect's problem: how to appoint a qualified CIA director and staff when his more radical supporters would rather simply see the CIA totally shut down and not led at all... |
I'm afraid the small glimmer of hope that is represented in this one case of Obama responding to his constituency is easily clouded out by the rest of his appointments.
If Lieberman is calling them "virtually perfect," you know we are in for trouble.
Neocons, Republicans and War Criminals Rave About Obama's 'Team of Rivals.'
As Barack Obama's opus, "Team of Rivals," continues its rolling debut, the early reviews are in and the "critics" are full of praise for the cast:
"[T]he new administration is off to a good start."
--Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
"[S]uperb...the best of the Washington insiders...this will be a valedictocracy -- rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes."
--David Brooks, conservative New York Times columnist
"[V]irtually perfect..."
--Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and John McCain's top surrogate in the 2008 campaign.
"[R]eassuring."
--Karl Rove, "Bush's brain."
"I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain...this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign...[Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for 'neo-liberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neo-conservativism.'"
--Max Boot, neoconservative activist, former McCain staffer.
"I see them as being sort of center-right of the Democratic party."
--James Baker, former Secretary of State and the man who led the theft of the 2000 election.
"[S]urprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration....certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush..."
--Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard.
"I certainly applaud many of the appointments..."
--Senator John McCain
"So far, so good."
-- Senator Lamar Alexander, senior Republican Congressional leader.
Hillary Clinton will be "outstanding" as Secretary of State.
--Henry Kissinger, war criminal.
Rahm Emanuel is "a wise choice" in the role of Chief of Staff.
--Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's best friend.
Obama's team shows "Our foreign policy is non-partisan."
--Ed Rollins, top Republican strategist and Mike Huckabee's 2008 campaign manager
"The country will be in good hands."
--Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush's Secretary of State
**Team of Rivals will be playing all day, every day for at least the next four years**
God help us. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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Here's someone who supported the Iraq War and urged Bush onto Iran.
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David Brooks' November 21 New York Times panegyric to Obama's prospective cabinet, gushes, "Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists." Brooks added, "... as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons ... I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition."
Has Brooks checked the markets? The cleverest people in the United States, the Ivy-pedigreed investment bankers, have fouled their own nests as well as their own net worth, and persuaded the taxpayers to bail them out. If these are the best and the brightest of 2008, America is in very deep trouble.
The one-trick wizards of Wall Street had one idea, which was to ride the trend and pile on as much leverage as credulous investors and crony regulators would allow. It has gone pear-shaped, and those who didn't cash out early along with the cynics are poor. Fortunately for them, Obama will let them play with the budget of the US federal government for the next four years.
Failed financiers run the Obama transition team. |
Frankly, I rather think Geithner and Summers will turn out to be a massive mistake. |
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