Posted on 01/07/2014 12:19:22 PM PST by Hojczyk
Gates writes about Obama with an ambivalence that he does not resolve, praising him as “a man of personal integrity” even as he faults his leadership. Though the book simmers with disappointment in Obama, it reflects outright contempt for Vice President Biden and many of Obama’s top aides.
Biden is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama’s deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”
During that interview, Obama said he believed he “had garnered confidence and trust in Gates.” In “Duty,” Gates complains repeatedly that confidence and trust was what he felt was lacking in his dealings with Obama and his team. “Why did I feel I was constantly at war with everybody, as I have detailed in these pages?” he writes. “Why was I so often angry? Why did I so dislike being back in government and in Washington?”
“All too early in the [Obama] administration,” he writes, “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials — including the president and vice president — became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders.”
Gates offers a catalogue of various meetings, based in part on notes that he and his aides made at the time, including an exchange between Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that he calls “remarkable.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Why was Gates so quite about Obama’s lack of leadership while on the job?
It is too late for Robert “GAYtes” to redeem himself. He sodomized our military, and now will do the same to the BSA.
Obama has every bit the integrity of Joesph Stalin.
Did you mean Quiet or quite?
Partial list of Obama's Integrity:
Fast and Furious
IRS attack on the Tea Party
Lies about Obamacare.
Crony capitalism
Siphoning off the public funds to his friends and personal vacations.
Gates: you either have NO understanding of integrity OR you are willfully blind OR you are a liar. Which is it?
Maybe because ZERO likes to fire people that disagree with him... and maybe because none of these people grow a spine until they perceive they are out of his reach. Even then they feel they have to throw in a compliment or two, just in case.
The honorable thing for him to do was to resign. It can't be all bad at the Pentagon, I haven't heard a peep about a civilian or military leader resigning over their objections to Obama's policies.
He seems to define integrity based on whether or not Obama betrayed him.
Example after example given of Obama's shortcomings.
Yet Gates says early in the article that Obama has personal integrity. Huh?
I stopped right here.
Dear Secretary Gates:
I believe that you have integrity; however presidents with "personal integrity" simply do not tell the lie..."if you like your health plan...(you know the rest)"
.
I'll skip buying your book.
.
Sorry, a-hole. It was on YOUR watch that the once honorable profession of arms threw open its doors open to homosexuality. You also were at the Defense helm when your boss attempted to screw the people of SE Virginia by arbitrarily disestablishing Joint Forces Command without a BRAC or QDR study of any kind.
Suck it, Gates. You don’t escape responsibility here.
Uhh, he lost me at “personal integrity”
I don't see how you can support the troops but not their mission, not when you are the president. That doesn't make sense, it's not like Obama is a citizen out here protesting or something--he's the Commander-in-Chief for gosh sakes! You send men to die for a mission you don't support but you support the troops? Yeah, right.
Gates new book may be interesting as point in history, and as an opportunity missed to impede his agenda, but the book I’m really waiting for is one that exposes exactly who is calling the shots in the White House. I want to know who made key decisions at certain critical points. Obama seems to nervous and unsure to have decided mostly on his own. Either Valeree G. or Michelle, or Czars associated with Unamercian activities.
All of the above plus stupid.
Yes the correct word is “quiet” & thanks for noting the typoglycemia.
So, if Gates hated working with the commies in the White House so much, why did he stick with them?
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