Gates has also done nothing since zero was elected except be a useless idiot for the left . . . to the detriment of our armed services. I have less than zero respect for him. The fact that he "defended" McChrystal was just political - he pushed McC for the Afghanistan job and he needed to defend his decision so as not to look as stupid as he actually is.
“Gates has also done nothing since zero was elected except be a useless idiot for the left”
I’m not defending Gates, but from Obama’s perspective, he is supposed to be the person in the Cabinet who knows most about national security/military matters. I just think it is illuminating that Obama rejected the advice of the military expert (not to mention the president of the country where this war is being fought) in favor of advice heavily weighted towards a political benefit-cost calculus.
Bush too pushed back against his military advisors in favor of the surge strategy in Iraq. Indeed, one can argue that Bush’s “stubborness” on this is what carried the day. But in so doing, he clearly was following the advice of other advisors who were arguing that the surge was the most effective MILITARY approach. He sure didn’t select the surge to increase his political popularity: indeed, he stuck to his guns even in the face of a public that seemed to have wearied of the war.
The contrast between GWB and Obama in terms of how they approached their respective decisions about how to conduct war in the ME couldn’t be sharper.