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"One quality I missed in Obama was passion…"...As I write in the book, it was this absence of passion, this absence of a conviction of the importance of success that disturbed me." “Passion?”...“Passion?” Did we not discuss the passion of the Won just last week??? Ok…you need more evidence...Now that’s passion! (h/t Injainjuneers)Big Guy! Not the creepy blonde yute!That’s passion for Obamacare! Not…you know. I don’t know what’s up with the blonde dude, butt I, for won, am glaad the joint is filled with SS Stormtroopers!Big Guy was having “The Talk” with some “young citizens” at The Coupe in...

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates sharply questions President Obama's "passion" for military matters in his forthcoming memoir, and claims that practically the only time he saw that in the president was during his push to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." The former Pentagon chief said in an interview aired Sunday that he was "disturbed" by Obama's "absence of passion" when it came to his military strategy. But in the book, "Duty," reviewed by Fox News, Gates hit Obama harder -- and in personal terms -- by contrasting his style with that of former President George W. Bush. "One quality I...

Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates should have waited until President Obama was out of office to publish his new book critical of the administration, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said this week. Hoyer was quick to praise Gates's work at the helm of the Pentagon, and emphasized that he has a good personal relationship with the former Defense secretary. But he also argued that Gates contradicts himself in his assessment of Obama; makes "inaccurate" charges against Vice President Biden; and, based on the timing of the book's release, has created the impression – falsely, Hoyer said – that his...

What did Hillary (D-Dem-e) know? Surely she knew at least to a large degree what former Defense Secretary Gates has proffered in his tell-some memoir (as it seriously torpedoes Biden and Obama but not so much Hillary in comparison). Funny... BOTH Chris Christie (R-GOP-e) and Biden (D-Dem-e) have been torpedoed in near-simultaneous fashion, as the memoir was some time in the writing, as well as the info coming out that hurts Chris Christie happened some time back. Coincidence? .......... And all this right after a power base is established with De BLAH-sio being coronated, er, I mean elected as mayor...

SEATTLE — Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in critical-but-stable condition in Seattle-Tacoma General Hospital after a tragic accident in his home kitchen left him brutally stabbed multiple times, sources confirmed this morning. Gates’ wife Becky found him lying on the floor of the family kitchen and called 911, according to a family spokesperson. Investigators believe Gates, 70, slipped on an orange peel while preparing breakfast and fell onto a paring knife 68 times. Paramedics confirmed that while grabbing for a handhold to stabilize himself, he also accidentally discharged a 20-gauge shotgun into the back of his own head three...

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” — Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Vice President Joe Biden Hey Bob, tell me a liberal who hasn’t. Step back from the ongoing scandal of Benghazi or the shameless politics of Hillary Clinton’s “I opposed the surge because you were in the primary, Barack” politics. Look instead at the Democratic Party’s record on foreign policy over the past 40 years. It’s not bad — it’s abysmal. Take Gates’ challenge: Name a foreign policy position that Democrats like John...

In a new memoir, former US defense secretary Robert Gates delivered bruising opinions about President Barack Obama’s leadership in the Afghanistan war. Gates said that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.” In what the Washington Post called “one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat,” Gates observed that Obama was very pessimisic regarding his own strategy in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not...

Speaking at a National Guard Association Conference in September 2008, Joe Biden praised Defense Secretary Robert Gates, exclaiming “Thank God Gates in in charge now!” Flash forward six years later and Gates has not returned the favor. Gates wrote a new memoir, which details his time during office, revealing can’t miss tidbits and making digs at important government officials, most notably taking a jab at Vice President Biden.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is releasing his memoir, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” a 600-page book that offers a stark, insider’s view of Washington, the Pentagon, Congress and America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (You can read an exclusive WSJ excerpt.) Here’s a look at some of the book’s most riveting revelations:1. Contempt for Congress Mr. Gates expresses open disdain for Congress and the way lawmakers treated him when he testified at hearings. “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...

Wow. Robert Gates just dropped an O-bomb. No wonder we had to send the squirrels out yesterday to demand “emergency” unemployment relief for the little people still unable to find a job in George W. Bush’s recession. In what might be considered an understatement, Bob Woodward says: “It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president.”  Butt as we’ve noted many times, when you’re dealing with a historical presidency, it’s not surprising that historical precedents continue to fall...

All too often during my 4½ years as secretary of defense, when I found myself sitting yet again at that witness table at yet another congressional hearing, I was tempted to stand up, slam the briefing book shut and quit on the spot. The exit lines were on the tip of my tongue: 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. I quit. Find somebody else. It was, I am confident, a fantasy widely shared throughout...

"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...

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has harsh words for Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy judgement in his soon-to-be-released memoir. According to the New York Times, which obtained an early copy of the memoir, Gates calls Biden “a man of integrity,” but questions his record. “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Gates writes, according to the Times. Gates, the only high-level holdover from the Bush administration to the President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, reveals he nearly quit his post in September 2009 while Obama reviewed...

The final numbers are in for the 2013 ballot initiatives and, surprise!, the pro-Amendment 66 campaign spent a ridiculous amount of money. But, they raised less than what they hoped as some cited $12 million as a target. They raised (and presumably spent nearly all) $11,079,408 to garner only 496,151 votes or 35% of the votes. That’s $22.33 per vote, which is more than either of the presidential candidates in the 2012 election. Not shocking, but the largest contributors to the effort were the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association (aka the teachers unions). Each contributed two million...

The Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday chose former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA director Robert Gates as its next president, who will face the task of repairing divisions in the organization from a heated debate over accepting gay scouts. As Defense Secretary, Gates supported President Barack Obama's withdrawal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Congress repealed the ban in 2010 and it was lifted in 2011.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants Colorado as his personal plutocracy and is willing to spend. If he succeeds, Coloradans will be subject to laws and politicians bought and controlled by an outside demagogue. Bloomberg, the man who tried to control how his constituents consume soft drinks and salt, has never received a vote in Colorado. He has never lived here. Yet, he's paying for ads that tell Coloradans to spend their hard-earned wages on the Amendment 66 tax increase - a deceptive attempt to channel more than $1 billion a year to state government under the guise of helping...

DENVER - In the final week before voters decide on Amendment 66, the campaign supporting the education tax increase received $2 million in donations from Melinda Gates and a charity run by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "It is a testament to the breadth and depth of our reforms that Colorado has attracted the attention of business leaders across the country," Gov. John Hickenlooper said of the donations. The donations from out-of-state, wealthy and politically-connected Democrats drew criticism from conservatives opposed to the tax increase. "Billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should have realized by now that he can't buy...

Hundreds are marching on the National Mall in Washington, DC to protest covert NSA surveillance operations on the anniversary of the Patriot Act. The organizers are planning to present Congress with a petition which has acquired over 570,000 signatures. Stop Watching Us is a collective of 100 public advocacy groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom Works, as well as individuals like Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose many of the NSAÂ’s surveillance procedures. The rally is scheduled to begin at 11:30 am local time on October...

Humans are the enemy! A new study published in Ecology and Society claims that longer life expectancy for us is bad news for the planet. From the study by Aaron Lotz and Craig R. Allen: We found a positive relationship between life expectancy and the percentage of endangered and invasive species in a country…The overall trend in high-income countries with improvements to the Human Development Index, which includes human life expectancy as one of its variables, is toward a disproportionately larger negative impact on a country’s ecological footprint. However, some lower-income countries have a high level of development without a...

President Obama’s first two defense secretaries criticized the administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis on Tuesday night and expressed skepticism about the chances that Russia will broker a deal to remove Syria’s chemical weapons.