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?
The Powerline guys say it much better than I can:
Why are Democrats so passive in the face of what could reasonably be considered a major betrayal? Last night I heard a caller to a talk radio show say something along the lines of "Sure, but now those policies will be carried out competently." (Gates, for example, will be a lot smarter now.) I think this translates to, "Now those policies will be carried out by a politician with a D after his name."
It took me a long time to understand that much of our politics is driven by sheer partisanship--not liberal vs. conservative, but Democrat vs. Republican. The fact that the President is a Democrat, regardless of the policies he pursues, really is a big deal to a great many people. As is, in this case, the fact that the President is African-American. So maybe Obama hasn't betrayed his backers as severely as an ideologue might think; perhaps having a Democrat in the White House (and handing out Washington jobs to other Democrats) really is enough for most of them.
