December 6, 2006
Gates Confirmation
:We will soon have a new Defense Secretary. Robert Gates was confirmed today with a 95-2 vote (only opposed by Conservative Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Jim Bunning (R-KY) who seemed to think he was not supportive enough of the President’s policies in Iraq). The Senate seems to have finally come to the view that most of the population already had decided – Rumsfeld has to go and the sooner the better (more on this when Rumsfeld finally leaves the Pentagon, rumors have him staying through the end of December). And while few will argue with this desire, we have no idea if Dr. Gates is the right man for this job. Sure he said the right things for a day and a half and seems to be a bit independent but he is not the first to dazzle Congress nominated by this President. The devil was in the details and could have been had if his hearings were delayed to hear the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations. Instead we know very little about Dr. Gates and have no basis to be excited about this nomination.
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