GATES TO GO? – AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, and one of the few Obama cabinet members to enjoy bipartisan support, is suggesting that he will be gone next year.  From The Politico:

When will Robert Gates go — one of Washington’s favorite parlor games — swung back in action Monday, when the defense secretary was quoted saying he plans to quit sometime next year.

Gates has cultivated the mystery by playing up just how much he wants to retire, but he told Foreign Policy this week he wants to leave office in 2011. “I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he said...

...Aides said he has long wanted to leave D.C. and return to Washington state, where he will most likely write a book and plan his next move, but he also enjoys the influence and respect he commands in Congress and inside the executive branch.

The Foreign Policy article is accurate, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon’s press secretary, but he said it doesn’t necessarily mean the secretary is leaving next year.

“This is not Bob Gates announcing his retirement,” Morrell told POLITICO. In fact, he said, every time Gates has planned his own retirement; he’s been called back into service.

COMMENT:  Stay, Bobby, stay! 

No, Gates is not indispensable.  In fact, there's a French saying, wrongly attributed to DeGaulle and maybe even wrongly attributed to Clemenceu, that the graveyards of the world are filled with indispensable men.  But Gates's presence is important because it prevents Obama from appointing a new secretary of defense, with the real possibility that he'd go with a major-league clunker like former Republican Senator (and turncoat Republican) Chuck Hagel.  It was recently reported, without attribution, that Hagel had been offered the post of national intelligence director, but had turned it down.  Maybe Chuck is looking for bigger fish.

Maintaining Gates guards against another Obama nutbag appointment.  And at least we know Gates is on the American side.

August 16, 2010