I just watched part of the hearing. First off, Hillary Clinton is a witch, qu4estioning the intelligence and patriotism of the President, VP, and Rummy....disgusting. I hope she gets slammed by at least FNC tomorrow. Gates came back after the break and offered clarification to his comment, stating that the military has not lost one battle they have been involved in Iraq, and they have done an outstanding job. Well....here he goes...he supports the troops but not the mission. I'm very disappointed, even more so after watching some of the replay. He does not seem to be very strong, he answered questions that indicated he is the decision maker, and he discussed events as if speaking from a CIA perspective instead of a DOD perspective. He needs a lot of work, he needs a lot of learning, he needs to think before he speaks. I'm certain that some of what and how he said things today was just to get through the confirmation process, but he wasn't kind to Rummy, and he didn't call the stupid senators on their partisan attacks. Many of the things they said we should be doing are already being done, and Gates should have said as much. I'm extremely disappointed overall in his performance today; and if I was President, I would be questioning my own pick for SECDEF. He did not acquit himself well today.