I’ve made no secret that I am very pro-Robert Gates. Apparently I am not alone. Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal explains why President Obama’s decision to keep Gates on as Secretary of Defense is one of the best decisions he has made as president in his article Obama’s Decision to Keep Gates Looks Ever Better.
It now appears that President Barack Obama’s shrewdest personnel move wasn’t making Timothy Geithner his Treasury secretary, or Lawrence Summers his chief economic adviser.
It was keeping Robert Gates, a Bush administration holdover, as secretary of defense.
Mr. Gates is a smart guy, tough in his own clipped manner, and an extremely crafty bureaucratic operator. All that was known before the president decided to keep him on.
What’s now clear is that Mr. Gates, as someone appointed to top national-security jobs by the past two Republican presidents, brought to the table a credibility that no Obama appointee would have had in making a series of difficult decisions without setting off a political firestorm.
The complete article is definitely worth a read… Obama’s Decision to Keep Gates Looks Ever Better
