By TSAS

November 11, 2008 9:15 PM | Link to this

I think he should select Colin Powell as Defense Secretary… He has both the experience and commands the respect necessary to get the job done.

By CJ

November 11, 2008 9:16 PM | Link to this

This liberal agrees with Bookman. Gates is a breath of fresh air. He’s not responsible for strategy (e.g. whether to stay in Iraq). He advises the President and carries out his policies.

Incidentally, Obama has made clear that he will not necessarily surround himself with people who are most likely to agree with him. He said that he wants to hear dissenting views, and to the extent that Bob Gates might offer such views, I believe that we can trust that he is at least being intellectually honest and that the President is intelligent enough to critique such points of view.

I’ll be perfectly comfortable if Gates stays (although let’s not go overboard by appointing a Republican as Secretary of State).

By By Love

November 11, 2008 9:22 PM | Link to this

The “Surge” didn’t work without Gates, why disrupt the flow with an unknowable element?

By RW-(the original)

November 11, 2008 9:24 PM | Link to this

Keeping Gates would at least prove that Obama knows what all the rest of us do. You need a Republican running defense, but has anybody asked Gates if he has any desire to stay?

By AJC/DNC Management

November 11, 2008 9:43 PM | Link to this

Does it even really matter, arranging the deck chairs on the freaking Titanic?

By "The Corporal"

November 11, 2008 10:01 PM | Link to this

Trouble in paradise?

1) The unwashed masses out there expect Obama to do their bidding. Once they find out this is not always going to happen the Honeymoon is over ! And you know what liberal do when the honeymoon is over …… demonstrations here we come !

2) “Arms control advocates and anti-war activists are ratcheting up pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to dump Defense Secretary Robert Gates and replace him with a more strident anti-war voice.”

Are you kidding? Anti-war? That’s for the Department of Peace.

We never should have changed it from the Department of War !!!

By By Love

November 11, 2008 10:06 PM | Link to this

Deck chairs, Titanic? Oh, I get it ,”sour grapes”, ha ha.

By Doggone/GA

November 11, 2008 10:07 PM | Link to this

“Incidentally, Obama has made clear that he will not necessarily surround himself with people who are most likely to agree with him”

Yes, he has. And as much as I admire Colin Powell for some things…he’s not the man to do that. If he was he’d never have made that presentation to the UN.

By "The Corporal"

November 11, 2008 10:19 PM | Link to this

For you armchair warriors out there who know so much about war:

“The rifleman fights without promise of either reward or relief. Behind every river there’s another hill, and behind that hill, another river. After weeks or months on the line only a wound can offer him the comfort of safety, shelter, and a bed. Those who are left to fight, fight on, evading death but knowing that with each day of evasion they have exhausted one more chance for survival. Sooner or later, unless victory comes, this chase must end on the litter or in the grave.”

General of the Army Omar N. Bradley

By By Love

November 11, 2008 10:19 PM | Link to this

Hindsight is 20/20, at the time Powell made his U.N. speech, many of us were vilified for not buying into the Bush/Cheney “war is good for Halliburton” scheme.

By By Love

November 11, 2008 10:28 PM | Link to this

What, exactly does the quote from Gen. Bradley have to do with the selection of a Defense Secraetary, anything? Or am I supposed to be so blindly impressed that I fail to notice you really haven’t said anything?

By TN Gelding

November 11, 2008 10:32 PM | Link to this

From Vent archives:

Saturday, February 26, 2005 9:40 AM

This might be a good time to change the name of DoD back to the War Department.

How did an offense coordinator become Secretary of Defense?

Gates would be fine. He probably should stay at least until the troops are out of Iraq, if he’s willing.

By By Love

November 11, 2008 10:37 PM | Link to this

Unfortunately, whomever is selected will have to deal with the muck and corruption left over from the Bush/Halliburton conflict of interest, it might as well be the one who’s been doing it for the past two years.

By @@

November 11, 2008 10:37 PM | Link to this

We’ll have to wait and see if this statement made by Gates influences PrezE Obama’s decision.

In a recent speech on why the US should retain nuclear weapons, Gates said: “As long as other states have or seek nuclear weapons - and can potentially threaten us, our allies and friends - then we must have a deterrent capacity that makes it clear that challenging the US in the nuclear arena - or with other weapons of mass destruction - could result in an overwhelming, catastrophic response.”

PrezE Obama at Perdue U.:

“It’s time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons,” the White House hopeful said.

That genie is out of the bottle and will never be contained again. Either Obama is a hopeless dreamer or he didn’t mean what he said. Just methin’ with the no-nukes crowd perhaps?

By RB from Gwinnett

November 11, 2008 10:48 PM | Link to this

Todd Palin is the luckiest man in America.

By By Love

November 11, 2008 10:51 PM | Link to this

RB,GAAAAAG!!!!!!

By TN Gelding

November 11, 2008 10:59 PM | Link to this

Or unless sanity is restored.

By RB from Gwinnett

November 11, 2008 11:03 PM | Link to this

By By Love 10:37 PM

“Unfortunately, whomever is selected will have to deal with the muck and corruption left over from the Bush/Halliburton conflict of interest”

What do you mean by this? What corruption do you have evidence of? Would you share that evidence with us or are you a typical lying liberal POS? And what’s your problem with Halliburton? Exactly. Not the moveon talking points, the facts. I’ll look forward to your well thought out response.

By TN Gelding

November 11, 2008 11:03 PM | Link to this

Saving the wounded.

By By Love

November 11, 2008 11:17 PM | Link to this

Certainly RB, just as soon as you prove anything I posted was a lie.

By "The Corporal"

November 11, 2008 11:22 PM | Link to this

To By By Love

Maybe you can understand this.

It’s kind of like the guys who sit around each Sunday watching NFL games telling the coach what to do but they’ve never even played in a game.

You would have had to have been there

By RB from Gwinnett

November 11, 2008 11:23 PM | Link to this

I’ll take that as an “i have no evidence, I’m just a liberal hack”.

Thanks for playing by love. You’re pathetic. You made the accusation, back it up. Don’t try the liberal reversal strategy if you can’t. Man up and admit it.

By By Love

November 11, 2008 11:24 PM | Link to this

Once again, send up a fireworks display, and pray the yokels won’t notice their pocket being picked. Yawn.

By RB from Gwinnett

November 11, 2008 11:36 PM | Link to this

I just don’t understand the mind of you liberals who feel it’s your right to go on public forums such as this one and make crap up about other people to suit your personal agendas. You never have any evidence and when questioned, you attack the one asking the question. Just like Joe the plumber.

How would you react if people you work with made up crap about YOU in the same manner and presented it to the world at large as fact? And then refused to provide support for their made up crap when questioned.

Consider yourself exposed, bylove. You’re a pathetic dishonest liberal hack. You’re welcome to dispute all but the “dishonst” part of that, but dishonest you certainly are.

By Dale Gribble's GOP

November 11, 2008 11:56 PM | Link to this

Management,

Woof woof! (Or, in your case, yelp yelp!)

How you say? Bwa

By BDAtlanta

November 12, 2008 12:09 AM | Link to this

RB and Corporal, What part of “conflict of interest” don’t you understand?

We elected a semi-ex defense contractor to be our VP. The guy worked at Haliburton. We’ve been at war for 6 of the 8 years he has been in office. Haliburton was the recipient of no-bid contracts for the war effort.

What do you folks tell yourselves so you don’t see this stuff for what it is? Why can’t you call a spade a spade?

Perhaps there is no corruption as the contracts must be legal. But no conflict of interest? Come on.

By shoney's big boy

November 12, 2008 12:12 AM | Link to this

semi-ex defense

what is that?

By Bullzeye

November 12, 2008 12:17 AM | Link to this

RB….was easy to find

http://arabwritersgroup.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/hanania-news-halliburton-corruption-case-goes-to-the-jury-for-immediate-release-10-16-08/

By BDAtlanta

November 12, 2008 12:19 AM | Link to this

Shoney’s,

I may be wrong but last I heard Cheney still had some financial interests with Haliburton.

Either way, that is beside my point that there is a conflict of interest.

By Bullzeye

November 12, 2008 12:21 AM | Link to this

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/ensign.html

By Bullzeye

November 12, 2008 12:24 AM | Link to this

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2008/lr20700.htm

By shoney's big boy

November 12, 2008 12:29 AM | Link to this

BD, I hope your side brings facts (and justice) to all.

Good luck.

Lies and inuendo.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 5:37 AM | Link to this

Inaugural housing woes- Going to the inauguration? It helps to be rich or have friends or family in D.C. Hotel rooms are getting scarce, slurp, slurp-Urinal/People’s Temple

I’m saving my money up for the impeachment trial.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 5:42 AM | Link to this

English city pays fatties to get fitter- London —- The English city of Manchester has come up with a simple formula it hopes will help keep its citizens trim: Eat right, get stuff. Exercise, get more stuff.-Urinal/DNC

So they paid them not to work and now they pay them to push ups and jumping jacks.

Anyone else see the problem here?

(Where are they getting the money for this?)

Wouldn’t it be easier just to round everybody up, put them in a camp where you can make sure they stay within the “guidelines” of the state?

Coming to a city near you.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 5:51 AM | Link to this

If you ever wondered what the democrat strategy was for gaining power and holding it, we all know it isn’t presenting their ideas to the American people, why do that when you can steal the vote?

Johnson didn’t explain how cheating is any more likely with early voting than with Election Day balloting, since the same state-sponsored photo identification is required for both. Instead, he and Handel managed to shred their carefully constructed rationale for harassing legally qualified voters. Their campaign against voter fraud is, well, a fraud.-Queen Pinko, Urinal

Well, let’s see here, you station a couple of Black Panthers outside the door of the polling place and intimidate any whites that want to vote or view the process.

This column from Tucker is so absurd it will probably win a pulitizer.

Check out recount, Minnesota, when you get a chance.

Oklahoma has only one day of early voting, registration stops 30 days before the election and requires photo ID, you know, they enforce the laws and protect people’s right to decide their own leaders.

All 77 of their counties went for McCain.

Need any more proof than that?

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 6:00 AM | Link to this

When Minnesotans woke up last Wednesday, Republican Senator Norm Coleman led Mr. Franken by 725 votes. By that evening, he was ahead by only 477. As of yesterday, Mr. Coleman’s margin stood at 206. This lopsided bleeding of Republican votes is passing strange considering that the official recount hasn’t even begun.

The vanishing Coleman vote came during a week in which election officials are obliged to double-check their initial results. Minnesota is required to do these audits, and it isn’t unusual for officials to report that they transposed a number here or there. In a normal audit, these mistakes could be expected to cut both ways. Instead, nearly every “fix” has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances.-WSJ

Gosh, I wonder why?

I mean really, a democrat would NEVER cheat, well, at least according to the democrats.

By drew

November 12, 2008 6:11 AM | Link to this

Nice to see that AJC/DNC has not let the asswhooping he took last week get him down. Stay fired-up my man! Kee on crying, keep on whining, and keep on spouting your nonsense. Oh, BTW, the election is OVER. We won. You lost. Keep on posting your garbage though…it’s pretty funny. BWAH!

Oh, and Corporal, I have nothing to say about secretary of defense. As someone who has never been in the service, I understand that my opinions are not valid. I’ll defer to your superior intellect on this one. BWAH!!

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 6:16 AM | Link to this

Here’s something you will never hear from the Oblahmi loving media:

Put another way, Mr. Obama got about 40,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry got four years ago. Mr. Obama carried the state when Mr. Kerry did not because Republicans stayed home. Nationally, the anticipated record turnout didn’t materialize. About the same percentage of registered voters came out this year as in 2004. And was that a realignment year?

In the same way that 1980 did not yield a generation-long period of Republican dominance, those on the right can take heart that 2008 does not represent the beginning of an era of Democratic supremacy.

Unless we stick with the moderates who lose elections.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 6:20 AM | Link to this

Let’s be clear on what this means. A Republican governor is encouraging a state supreme court to legislate from the bench and overturn the will of the people — not for the first time, either. To legalize same-sex marriage, the California high court had to overturn Proposition 22, an initiative passed in 2000 that enshrined the traditional meaning of marriage in statutory law. A move by the California supremes to strike down Proposition 8 would be the second time the court overthrew the will of the people.

The people don’t matter anymore.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 6:24 AM | Link to this

The question is, how is the so-called Mainstream Media in America today, under the new Obama Administration, any different from the media in the old Soviet Union? This American establishment media is also entirely controlled by and devoted to one Party, the Democrat party. Studies have long shown that roughly 90% of those working for these media institutions are Democrats. Already we can see with the emerging Obama Administration that this media is slavishly devoted to repeating the new government party line, extending the pattern they established during the campaign.-AmSpec

By AJC/DNC Management

November 12, 2008 6:27 AM | Link to this

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE recognize what is going on. A survey by the liberal Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that “by a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain win on Nov. 4.” Even 62% of Democrats recognized the media favoritism for Obama. Another Pew poll found that only 30% of the public believes all or most of what CNN reports, with 24% for NBC and 22% for CBS. A Rasmussen poll found that by a margin of 10-1, the public believes that reporters were trying to hurt Sarah Palin politically through their coverage.-AmSpec

By "The Corporal"

November 12, 2008 9:18 AM | Link to this

To Drew

Precisely! You catch on quick.

By Hillbilly Deluxe

November 12, 2008 9:34 AM | Link to this

Anytime somebody wins an election groups always line up to claim they are the reason for the victory. Then they try to present the bill to get what they want. This is nothing new. Obama, like any other politician, should be his own man. If things go south, they would abandon him in a heartbeat. In my opinion keeping Gates would be a good decision.

By "The Corporal"

November 12, 2008 10:07 AM | Link to this

“The war resistance movement actually serves to weaken the nations with a more liberal type of government and, indirectly, to support the policies of the existing tyrannical governments”.

Albert Einstein

By RealityKing

November 12, 2008 11:19 AM | Link to this

Obama will most certainly pick the man best able to gut America’s military while leading it in a full retreat.

Someone who will have no legacy in the end, someone like Harold Brown, Carter’s defence secretary.., remember him??

By RealityKing

November 12, 2008 11:22 AM | Link to this

Crow all you want Jay.., Bush had 76% the first year.

By GodHatesTrash

November 12, 2008 11:24 AM | Link to this

My front door neighbor-lady growing up had a son who was about 10 years older than me that joined the USMC. He served four tours in Vietnam, choosing to stay and fight to the war’s end.

Despite his two Purple Hearts, he re-upped for a fifth tour in-country, receiving a three-month leave. He arrived home in time for Memorial Day weekend, 1972. He was killed in a motorcyle wreck the Sunday before Memorial Day, 1972.

He could have come home after the first tour. But he had no quit in him.