BREAKING NEWS: Gates to remain at Pentagon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

Several officials close to President-elect Barack Obama's transition tell CNN that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to stay on the job for at least the first year of the new administration.

One source called it "all but a done deal" that the announcement could come as early as next week.

"It's now pointing in that direction," one of the sources close to the transition said of Gates being part of Obama's national security team, which may include Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

"It's likely to happen," a second source close to the transition said of Gates staying on.

This source noted that Gates could stay for longer than a year if he and Obama end up working well together.

Well, we'll see if these anonymous sources are right. I suspect they are. This has been rumoured for some time, after all, and, as far as I know, no other names (e.g., Nunn) have been leaked or floated.

As I put it a couple of weeks ago, this is not change I can believe in. Why? Because it's not change at all. Yes, I understand that Obama wants continuity and stability, but Gates is a long-time member of the Republican foreign, military, and intelligence establishment (even if he's nominally an independent). Of course, he's been a vast improvement over Rumsfeld, but the bar was pretty low, and, to me, keeping Gates just means more of the same, specifically, more war in Iraq a ramping up of the war in Afghanistan. (And then there's his past, littered with dirty laundry.)

If I may go off on a tangent for a moment, I have been more than willing so far to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. He is being criticized by some on the left, among the Netroots, for being insufficiently progressive, but, to me, he is being, so far during the transition, admirably pragmatic, not least in building what seems to be a fantastic team around him. In fact, as I put it a few days ago, there are positive signs he could actually be a progressive president, perhaps even a genuinely transformational one. Yes, he supported Lieberman, and, yes, there will be some foreign and military policy hawks around him, but, given his positions on health care, energy, and global warming, his emphasis on diplomacy and rebuilding America's image around the world, and his activist response to the economic and financial crisis, I simply do not think he will govern as a "centrist," which usually means right-leaning, let along from the supposed center-right, unless -- and this is what I hope will happen, in time -- he pulls the center to the left. If anything, he has the opportunity to make liberalism the center once again.

And yet, when it comes to keeping Gates at the Pentagon, I just can't give him the benefit of the doubt. As Chris Bowers points out at Open Left, after all, "keeping Gates on... only worsen[s] Democratic image problems on national security, as he would be the second consecutive non-Democratic Secretary of Defense nominated by a Democratic President [after Bill Cohen by Bill Clinton]. The message would be clear: even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military." As well, while Gates may not be a right-wing ideologue, neocon or otherwise, many of his key people certainly -- and they are likely to remain with him at the Pentagon.

In short, this seems to be a terrible move on Obama's part. Maybe it will work out better than expected -- with Obama and Gates not just working well together but working well in the right way and towards the right ends -- but, as of right now, I'm not impressed.

(For more, see the Politico, ABC News, and Reuters, as well as all the reaction at Memeorandum.)

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For an interesting analysis of bipartisanship as building an "outside-in" coalition, see Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist:

There is... one form of "bipartisanship" that Bush never took seriously, and that is very consistent with everything Barack Obama has said on the subject. Back in 2001, I described it as an "ouside-in" coalition:

This variety, typically used by incoming Presidents during their "honeymoon" period, involves the aggressive, direct stimulation of public opinion to push members of the opposing party, especially those from states or districts where the President is popular, to come across the line.

This is essentially bipartisanship (or if you wish, post-partisanship) from the ground up, which reaches out to rank-and-file Republicans and independents to mobilize support for big national initiatives. I contrasted this with the "inside-out" coalition -- often known later as High Broderism -- which involves deal-cutting in Washington across party lines.

I raise this distinction partly because it's important in and of itself, and also because it provides the essential context for the decisions Obama makes on appointments. It's one thing to appoint Republicans to positions as a signal that the new administration is interested in a broader agenda of bipartisan deal-cutting in Washington. It's another thing altogether to appoint a diverse team of officials who are all pledged to implement a clear progressive agenda.

For more on this, see Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central. To me, it does look like Obama is building just that sort of "diverse team." The question is whether he is committed to implementing "a clear progressive agenda." He may very well be, and, yes, I retain the hope that he is.