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The only member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet to have also served under President George W. Bush continues to eye retirement next year.
In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he hopes to retire next year. He aims to step down before January 2012, he told the magazine, pointing out that “this is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year.”
It’s no secret that Gates has been planning to leave the job. He and his staff have repeatedly said Gates would likely retire in 2011 assuming that two conditions are met: the Afghanistan “surge” strategy must be set and underway, and the stage must be set to control Pentagon spending.
Gates also wants to be directly involved in the selection of senior military officers who will replace a number of 3-and-4 star generals and admirals in key positions over much of the next year.
By next year, Gates said in the interview, “we'll have completed the surge. We'll have done the assessment in December. And it seems like somewhere there in 2011 is a logical opportunity to hand off."
Gates, who has served in the post for almost four years, will turn 67 in September.
One Pentagon official predicts that if Gates actually does retire in 2011, it may be later rather than earlier. "His sense of responsibility for the job may trump his desire to retire," said the official.
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Fiction sells better than ever these days.
First Read headline in 2011...
President Obama's top official ousted for Disagreeing
First Read has just learned that Defense Secretary Gates has been fired...
I don't think FR will change from now and 2011. They are sounding more like FAUX news everyday.
Couldn't agree more LouisJ - the Corporate masters are uneasy about the outcome of the election and have decided to 'create' 'news' rather than 'report' it!
Unfortunately it becomes more evident with each passing day
Here is what the MSM is doing. On Friday, Willie Geist(a regular) on the Morning Joe show made this Statement, while talking about the Jet Blue thing, "We Don't Care About The Facts,We Have A Narrative To Push Here".
Most Sane folks already knew this, but to hear 1 of thier own, Actually Admit to it, is STUNNING.
As for Sec. Gates, he came in to change the outcome of Iraq,"Mission Accomplished".
Mr. Gates, you are an American Patriot & we Thank You for your service.
what exactly is false about what fox news reports? Is mslsd fair and unbiased? If it wasn't for fox news your wannabe dictator would coast through with his socialist/marxist agenda to ruin the country. Thank God for fox news and how they woke up the freedom and prosperity loving citizens.
U just won the prize for uninformed. So apparently you have been sleeping while those guys on the Right has been looting the treasury by the name of Dick and Bush... now someone woke you up... Earth to husky... Republicans ruined the country... but if u just woke up and r taking FAUX news word for it, then they don't want to help people like you that were in a coma...
Husky: There are a lot of ways of distorting information without exactly making false statements. Fox News tends to be very good at it. I'll give two examples of incidents that -- had I seen them on any other news channel -- would have stopped me from watching the news there in the future.
When the NATO people and our own inspectors finally announced that there were no WMDs in Iraq (the reason given for the invasion), Fox News ran a teaser: "Up Next -- Are Saddam's WMDs Now In Syria?" This was during a news program, not one of Fox's opinion journalist's programs.
It's not a "lie" and it's not exactly "false." It's a logical fallacy. Or, as lawyers put it, it "assumes facts not in evidence." The assumption is that Saddam had a stash of active WMDs after all, and the statement fingers Syria as an enemy without any evidence. (Everyone agrees that Saddam gave up any WMD programs after the Gulf War ten years earlier and the stashes found were old, corrupted, unworkable, and still buried.)
The covert message is that the invasion was justified for the reasons given, and that now we must start thinking about combat in Syria.
The second example is a similar teaser before a commercial break: "Next Up -- Obama's Dirty Little Secret," repeated several times. The dirty little secret was that he was quitting smoking. As news, it's "little" alright, but it's not dirty. It's a laudable act. And it was no secret at all. Yet what sticks in the viewers mind are three words: "Obama," "dirty," and "secret."
It's not worth bothering much with Fox's opinion journalists, but I'll give one example from O'Reilly.
When Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister became pregnant, O'Reilly went on about how this was a symptom of the decay of modern life, in which parents were unable or unwilling to control their children, and more strict rules were in order, and no parent should be ashamed of punishing a child.
When Sarah Palin's seventeen-year-old daughter became pregnant, O'Reilly described the Palins as an admirable family who had met a crisis head on and were dealing with it in an admirable and constructive way.
I'd contrast this with Fox's counterpart on the left, MSNBC. Not Keith Olbermann, who is as much a blowhard and is as deliberately inflammatory as anyone at Fox, but with Rachel Maddow. Maddow doesn't simply offer opinions in an angry tone. She really does her homework. If a Senator switches parties, she gives you a history of what's happened in the past when Senators switch parties. She names the Senators and briefly describes the results. When she has occasional hostile guests, she openly disagrees with them and gives her position, but she doesn't shout them down or become angry. She lets them talk and listens intently. And in her stories, she invariably cites the sources when she attributes statements (in a little box in one of the lower corners). She has a D.Phil. from Oxford and she's kept the scholar's tendency to cite sources.
In these small but important ways -- citing sources, accuracy of information, historical depth, and absence of open anger -- she's the exact opposite of Rush Limbaugh and much of what one sees on Fox.
Of course, for those 20% of us who enjoy having their outrage stoked, Fox News has a solid lock on that audience.
So we quote the "Professional Left"
Gates is a true patroit, and this country owes him a huge "thank you", I wish him well , which ever path he chooses. I'm retired and I love it, again, THANK YOU!!!!
Gates shows what can be achieved when our officials put politics aside and do their job.
Is Gates a Republican/Conservative? He did serve under Bush.
Is Gates a Democrat/Progressive ? He currently serves under Obama.
No one cares and his work record speaks for itself. He tells it as it is, regardless of who will be offended and follows a path that makes sense to achieve goals.
I will miss Gates a lot when he leaves. I've read that he gets along famously with Sec. Clinton, VP Biden and Pres. Obama. I know that his position will be filled but I can't imagine that there's anyone who can take his place. He really is a true patriot who has served his country with dignity and loyalty (he really did cross party lines) and this country is better because of it. His shoes will be very hard to fill. A job well done :)
Maggie,
I'm hoping that you won't miss him for too long. I'm thinking he's going to come back as the leading candidate for president in the next presidential election and blow everyone else away.
Everyone please walk calmly and orderly to the exit doo...arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Ha Ha Republican'ts are so dumb, war hungry and hypocritical. Wasn't it their brilliant Rep. Paul Ryan who, by the way, wants to put social security on the stock market say--“there are billions of dollars of waste you can get out of the Pentagon, lots of procurement waste. We’re buying some weapons systems I would argue you don’t need anymore?”
Republicant's need to stop writing proposals with their pen!s’ just to further their military industrial complex crony profiteers. Somehow paying lip service to cutting defense for them is riddled with hypocrisy. I’ve never seen an increased war budget they didn’t simply love. Can’t even fathom why anyone would listen to Sarah Palin either.
She once said in a speech that --“no government agency should be immune from budget scrutiny,” but then turned around and said “we absolutely must purchase all the weapons”. Hell, she can’t write figures deficits correctly on the palm of her hand. HaHa!!!!
Thank you Mr Gates
Obama leaps into
mosque fray —
then tries to find
a way out, hey MSNBC this is another made up bunch of media 20% approval crap. Here are the facts from MMFA, quit making things up you Faux news wanabes
Obama did not "walk back" on "unshakeable" commitment to religious freedom
Obama's initial comments on Islamic center: "[O]ur commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable." As part of his speech at the White House Ramadan iftar dinner on August 13, Obama addressed the right of Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero:
Obama later re-emphasized his support for religious freedom. While vacationing in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama addressed his comments regarding the center and, according to The Washington Post, "reiterated the stand he took on Friday night at a White House dinner." The Post reported on August 15:
Wash. Post: "White House officials said the president's comments Saturday were not at odds with what he had said the night before." In its August 15 article, the Post further reported that White House officials deny that Obama was "endorsing the construction of the Islamic center" or that he was contradicting himself:
Sargent: No "walkback or contradiction here." In an August 14 entry to his Washington Post Co. blog, The Plum Line, Greg Sargent dismissed claims that Obama "walked back his support" of the Islamic community center, writing that Obama "hasn't backed off [his] core assertion. Nor is it contradicted by a refusal to comment directly on the 'wisdom' of the project itself." Sargent wrote [emphasis added]:
Mr. Gates is one of those people who know the meaning of serving one's country.
Gates is a good man, He has done his job well.
I agree, totally, even though I can barely stand to listen to him speak. Boring has little to do with dedication and sound judgement. He managed to make even Bush look competent, though I still favor the Joe Biden path...."over and out!"
I wish him well. He protected us and did a very good job! I certainly wouldn't want to continue working with O'Drama.
You know when Gates is gone, O'Drama is going to blame him too.
I have been telling my friends for months that Gates would be the best person from any party to run for President of the USA. He has the career credentials to stand head and shoulders above any flock of airheads put forward by the political parties. Please blog his name and examine for yourself his outstanding qualifications. He is the type of person to finally pull the US out of the mess its currently in. When he speaks, I listen.
I agree, Joe. Dr. Gates would be a great candidate. He has functioned amazingly well under both Republican and Democratic presidents. He's extremely intelligent, makes good decisions, and handles himself well under pressure . At this point, he would get my vote...and I suspect he would easily win the election. Unfortunately, I doubt that he will seek the nomination.
Gates is a good man, has done a stellar job and in my opinion one of the very few in Obama's cabinet playing with a full deck.