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Gates officially kept as SECDEF

CougarKing

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An extended transition?

Details here: "http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081126/D94M96R80.html"
CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar the two men's discussions.

Obama is expected to announce the selection of Gates and other members of a national security brain trust next week. Gates has served as President George W. Bush's defense chief for two years.

Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.

Retaining Gates provides stability for a stretched military fighting two wars during the turbulent changeover in administrations. Gates once said it was inconceivable that he would stay on past the close of Bush's term on Jan. 20.

But the 65-year-old former spymaster had recently turned mum in public on the circumstances under which he would stay, even briefly, in an Obama administration.

Keeping Gates might afford Obama a sort of extended transition, in which critical military issues are left in trusted hands while Obama focuses most intensely on the financial crisis...
 
That doesn't sound very good to servicemen/women who voted on "Change you can believe in"; they believed in Obama, not Bush.
 
I don't recall reading anywhere in the article about Bush being made a member of Obamas cabinet, I do remember reading that Obama won by popular vote and that he had decided to keep someone who knew what they were doing in a position to continue doing so.
If anything that sounds good to servicemen/women, they won't have a brand new untested dude in charge as SecDef.
 
Neo Cortex, do you think Gates has been incompetent in his post? I think he has done quite well, given the challenges he faced upon taking office.
 
JasonSkald said:
Neo Cortex, do you think Gates has been incompetent in his post? I think he has done quite well, given the challenges he faced upon taking office.

To be honest, my knowledge is limited (and, in retrospect, my comment was probably out of line given my relative inexperience in these sorts of things.); As I understood it, Bush is the Commander-in-Chief and therefore would appoint the Secretary of Defence. I assume both of them had a role in the handling of the Iraq war. I thought Obama was interested in a solid exit strategy for the war, and an extended transition doesn't necessarily both well in that respect.

(Anyway, I retract my previous statement.)
 
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