.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Picture of the Day


Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hugs the mother of a wounded soldier at Walter Reed.

posted by mikevotes at 7:17 AM

6 Comments:

  • Is it just me, or is Gates the only member of the administration that seems to have a soul and a sense of ethics and traditional American values. I'll bet he's pretty lonely at WH office parties...

    By Blogger -epm, at 6:05 PM  

  • Yes. That's why I put this up.

    He is the only one who (at least in public) seems to have some feeling towards the sacrifice soldiers and their families are making.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:18 PM  

  • I want to believe that SecDef Gates is sincere. I need to believe that finally there is at least one person in the civilian chain of command that isn't simply a cold, cynical, political tool when it comes to the lives of our troops and their families.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:52 AM  

  • At the same time, though, his "feeling" hasn't apparently substantially altered Iraq policy thus far.

    You could argue that he's been fairly important in counterbalancing Cheney in the deliberations going forward, but, so far, I've seen nothing that says he's changed too much of anything.

    He's been a bit more forthcoming.


    The only place that I've really seen him take a hard stand is when he absolutely refused the possibility of any more deployment extensions.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:03 AM  

  • No doubt about it, Gates is no Kucinich. I'm sure he believes in the war strategy. But I'm also cutting him some slack because I'm not sure how much independence he really has in this unary executive branch of gvt.

    One of the biggest things he's done, in my opinion, is to deny the administration legitimacy when it tries to silence opposition voices as unpatriotic. He's the only administration official I know of that has unambiguously -- and without condition -- said the opposition debate is healthy for democracy.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:28 AM  

  • Actually, I'm not so sure that Gates believes in the strategy so much as he signed on to it when he took the job.

    I know that's quibbling, as the current result is the same, but it may yield some differences down the road.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:48 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home