Towering Obama Arrogance and Superbia Confirmed in Robert Gates' New Tell-All Book...

Reaganite Republican ^ | 08 January 2014 | Reaganite Republican

[Reaganite Republican]

"I may be the secretary of defense, but I am also an American citizen, 

and there is no son-of-a-bitch in the world who can talk to me like that."

Turns out that (genuinely bipartisan) former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -the only high level official to stay-on from the Bush to Obama administrations, and who worked in some capacity for every US president since Richard Nixon- 'almost quit' in a 2009 Afghanistan strategy meeting, after being treated like crap by a President who he felt had zero grasp of "the uncertainties and unpredictability of war.' "

This -among other things- was revealed in Gates' new 600-page memoir
'DUTY- Memoirs of a Secretary at War', an advance copy of which has been obtained by the NY Times... this is gonna hurt Hillary and Biden, too-

Gates on Obama: 

• In March 2011 Afghanistan 'War Room' meeting with Obama and others: "“As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his,” Mr. Gates wrote.
  "For him, it’s all about getting out."

• Re. dealing with snotty WH staff: "controlling nature" of the staff "took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level."

• (Obama's) White House was by far the most centralized and controlling in national security of any I had seen since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled the roost.

• "“Hillary told the president that her opposition to the (2007) surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions -and in front of me- was as surprising as it was dismaying." 

• And in one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief, Gates says Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail...

• Thoughts in strategy meeting with Obama: "I quit. Find somebody else. It was, I am confident, a fantasy widely shared throughout the executive branch..."

• "It is difficult to imagine two more different men than ... Bush and ... Obama. Clearly, I had fewer issues with Bush... I don't recall Bush ever discussing domestic politics—apart from congressional opposition—as a consideration in decisions he made during my time with him...

• Bush was willing to disagree with his senior military advisers, but he never (to my knowledge) questioned their motives or mistrusted them personally. Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations. Bush seemed to enjoy the company of the senior military; I think Obama considered time spent with generals and admirals an obligation.

• With Obama... I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change course—and equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor... in virtually every major national security problem we tackled. The White House staff—including Chiefs of Staff Rahm Emanuel and then Bill Daley as well as such core political advisers as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs —would have a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced...

• 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 by Gates as regularly engaged in "aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders."

On Biden: 

• "a man of integrity", yet "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades"

• Gates -who also worked at the CIA and National Security Council- was highly critical of VP Joe Biden- accusing him of "poisoning the well" for military leadership.

On Congress: 

• I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

• I was more or less continuously outraged by the parochial self-interest of all but a very few members of Congress. Any defense facility or contract in their district or state, no matter how superfluous or wasteful, was sacrosanct. I was constantly amazed and infuriated at the hypocrisy of those who most stridently attacked the Defense Department as inefficient and wasteful but fought tooth and nail to prevent any reduction in defense activities in their home state or district.

• I also bristled at what's become of congressional hearings, where rude, insulting, belittling, bullying and all too often highly personal attacks on witnesses by members of Congress violated nearly every norm of civil behavior. Members postured and acted as judge, jury and executioner...

_________________________________________________________________

New York Times   Swampland   Wall Street Journal   TownhallWashington Post   h/t Drudge   h/t BadBlue News

[Albion Wilde]

There is a great difference between thinking a thing and saying it; and between saying a thing and writing it down. When I was in business negotiations, the scariest thing that could happen to a bully was when someone took the time to write down their opinion of the bully’s behavior, even if tactfully, and to explain why it was not productive for the bottom line. You never saw people change course so rapidly, even if initially to punish the messenger. The keyboard remains mightier than the sword.

[Albion Wilde]

Just a guess, but Gates didn’t resign because he felt his responsibility to the Country and thought he it best to work from within. It was a gutsy move to publish this book with O still in office. Leads me to believe that the situation was worse than what he wrote.

Agreed.

[Reaganite Republican]

Your response to Ken is a likely possibility, OzD

And your observation re. ‘far worse’... I definitely DON’T get the feeling Gates is doing it now for $, like somebody suggested earlier in this thread... it IS gutsy to do it now, and imho there is some other reason than $ he felt a sense of urgency to speak about this vile regime

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Will Obama leave office? I think not. If he changes laws why not just stay in power/ The MSM would hail this move to 3rd world dictaorship as a bold step. Only until he turns on them.

[gattaca]

Well stated. I totally agree.

[DaveA37]

To: ClearCase_guy

“I suspect there will be worse, when he eventually leaves, hopefully in 2017.”.......

Why not today? We all know sooner is better than later and the sooner he is “gone”, certainly things will improve albeit a bit later.

[OKSooner]

" I’m waiting to see what books come out after Obama is out of office ... "

As the Secret Service dude (I forget his name) running for congress said, "It's worse than people think."

(I tend to buy some of the speculation about drugs and uh... certain personal proclivities.)

It just might be a moot point though. By January 2017 it may be too late, and we'll still have chickenhsit Republicans posing as the nearest thing to an opposition party.

[Bigg Red]

My frustration with 2x Obama voters knows no bounds...

***
My frustration with the voter fraud that allowed that second election knows no bounds. I do not believe he actually had the votes.

[Bigg Red]

Would it not have been gutsier before Obamao’s 2nd coronation? How many lives among servicemen might have been spared if Obamao had not been crowned once again?

[Mr Rogers]

Gates was an ass while SecDef, and apparently an idiot. He was shocked to find out what people in fly-over country knew all along.

Odd, isn’t it. I retired the month before Obama was elected, yet I could have ‘revealed’ all the stuff that Gates was shocked to learn. What does that say about Gates?

[I am Richard Brandon]

"People who voted for him should be deported."

Dare I suggest that we turn Kenya into a 21sr Century Liberia?

[ken5050]

Gates was SecDef. His primary responsibility is to the troops under his command. Heck..that's the first thing they teach you at Quantico, and at any of the service academies or OCS. Gates makes the compelling case that Obama didn't give a shit, that he was sacrificing the lives and limbs of our troops for political expediency. Sorry, but you can't continue to stay in office if you believe that's happening. You resign, go public with the reasons you did, and hopefully force a change in policy. But the Puzzle Palace has become so politically attuned under Obama that not ONE senior officer has chosen to resign. It shows they're more concerned with protecting their own rice bowls than the troops they command.

The absolute worst Sec Def post WW II was Robert Strange McNamara. I loathe and detest that man. It took him 50 years to write a book in which he confesses that some of his policies and strategies in Vietnam weren't the best possible ( at a cost of 50,000+ US lives) It only took Gates 2 years to do the same..

[Albion Wilde]

Would it not have been gutsier before Obamao’s 2nd coronation? How many lives among servicemen might have been spared if Obamao had not been crowned once again?

Six hundred pages. My guess is that he struggled mightily with the anger and rage he felt at the betrayal of our forces, with his long service involving loyalty to the highest reaches of the governments he served and the military tradition of loyalty to the CIC, with his disbelief that so brazen and heartless a display of unconstitutionality and cynicism could really have happened. He says as much about his astonishment at the purely political manipulation of the war that Obama and Hillary admitted in front of his face.

He must be on his knees and trembling, especially with every revelation about the Holder DOinJ, the IRS and NSA scandals and the thrown-to-the-wolves fate of four patriots in Benghazi, all while this lengthy book was in the stages of editing and publication. He has probably had to seek legal counsel at many points along the way.

I didn't always agree with Gates: far from it. But God bless and keep him now. At last, someone has dared to smash the fragile amphora of Political Correctness and call it like he sees it. Better late than never.

[Liz]

GATES was highly critical of VP Joe Biden- accusing him
of "poisoning the well" for military leadership....and
of being "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and
national security issue over the past four decades"

"Obama loved it when I did this to him. That's how I got the VP nod."