Obama's Cabinet: Leaning Towards Keeping Gates, Advisers Say

WSJ:

The WSJ reports:

President-elect Barack Obama is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in his position for at least a year, according to two Obama advisers. A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates would likely accept the offer if it is made.

No final decision has been made, and Obama aides said other people are also under serious consideration for the defense post, one of the most highly coveted in any new cabinet. Several prominent Democrats, including former Clinton Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and former Clinton Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, are also being considered.

A former Defense official told the Huffington Post last week that keeping Gates on is "the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Read more about Obama's Cabinet here.

Read the whole story: WSJ

Comments

[McChimp]

Nothing is concrete yet, just look at the source, WSJ! Take this with a grain of salt.

[steamboat]

Excellent move by Obama.......Gates is a great Sec. of Defense. He's killed more terrorists in one year then that idiot Rumsfeld did in six. His surge worked. He's modernized our military and improved morale. He's the best Sec. of Defense we've had in a long, long time.

[obgynobgyn]

Don't keep him.
When you have someone in that position for so long you run the risk
of another J. Edgar Hoover, who spent his time taping private conversations,
digging into private lives, and black mailing presidents so they would keep him on.

[Ramirez]

Gates has been SecDef for less than two years.

[jake106]

Don't confuse him with the facts, his mind is already made up.

[MurrayAbraham]

The move would make perfect sense to me. The argument made by the former "Defense official" who claims it would be the "the dumbest thing I've ever heard", is that keeping Gates means keeping the "middle men" some of which were among the architects of the Bush doctrine.

IMHO, this doesn't fly really high. From his attitude these last two years Gates would be the ideal person to clean-up the place without disrupting the whole thing. Furthermore, the advantage of having someone in place who knows the problems inside-out, largely out ways the presence of a few rotten apples. It all boils down to the fact that Obama and gates must be in complete agreement on what the one year transition phase is all about.

[ptarantino]

I think this is a good idea. Keep Gates on for a year & provide some stability. Gates has done a solid job & has a open mind. However, Obama needs to clean out every crazy neo-con on day 1.

[grumpygranny66]

Bad idea, Barack should start with a clean slate without previous baggage. That's my opion.

[scandals&skeletons]

I beleive his thinking is to keep Gates on for a smooth transition. My guess is that he will replace him but not right away.

[Makesense]

Why all the fu@@@@ leaks?

[Invox]

Ditto! This leak business is not a good thing! Where are you Rahm-bo?

[Myshkin57]

I doubt this is a real leak. It may be true that they'll keep Gates, but it just seems like probable speculation that they put as a leak so that if it turns out to be true, which it probably will, they can claim to have been on top of it.

[ENOS]

ah.. the leaks serve a purpose. they're trying to guage the Nation's reaction. Obama likes to gether the populist perspective before making his mind, a sign of a real pragmatic thinker.