Top 10 Revelations From Robert Gates’s Memoir

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 7, 2014 | Dion Nissenbaum

[Zakeet]

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 prone to put self (and re-election) before country.” Mr. Gates said he fantasized about storming out of hearings and quitting. “There is no son of a bitch in the world who can talk to me like that,” he writes of his fantasy.

2. Contempt for Vice President Biden Mr. Gates expresses particular dissatisfaction with Vice President Joe Biden. He describes Mr. Biden as a “man of integrity” who “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Specifically, Mr. Gates said he opposed Mr. Biden’s proposed limited strategy in Afghanistan to focus on counter-terrorism: “Whac-A-Mole hits on Taliban leaders weren’t a long term strategy,” he writes.

[Albion Wilde]

Obama's Peeps have never been her friends, and now feel that the White House is the exclusive domain of "our people". They won't go down without a fight. (and for this reason, I suspect the Dems will have great difficulty nominating non-minorities in the future)

You have only to look at the chain of mayors in the major cities to see that. Philadelphia, for one example. Now that it is in complete, utter and nearly irredeemable decay, Detroit has once again elected a Europe-descended mayor. If he manages to fix it up, they will go right back to their Democrat ways.

[Albion Wilde]

I suspect that ego led him to believe two things: inaccurately, that HE could somehow steer the administration to do the right thing some of the time; and, accurately, that if he didn’t take the job, someone much worse for the country would (Barbara Boxer perhaps?).

I'm no fan of Gates, either, and we can thank him for attacking DADT, among other things. But is it possible he was aware of the incompetence and was genuinely concerned for the fate of the soldiers in theater? Obama's watch has seen twice as many U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan than during Bush's two terms, in no small part because of his cabal's determination to lose through suicidal ROE's.

[Albion Wilde]

You are entitled to your opinion but I just don't buy it.

Don't buy what? What he said they did, or the way he handled it? There's a difference. Even if this is the best he could do, at least he is saying something now. He is perhaps the most experienced senior official who has come forward. Someone has to take a finger out of the dam.

[Jedidah]

Remember “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

Gates and Hillary have one thing in common: they both detest Obama and his minions. That’s all.

[Rockitz]

If that's the case, it's pretty hypocritical of him to sit there day in and day out as BHO undercut him. If he was such a patriot, why didn't he expose this in time to impact the 2012 election? Minimally, he's been pretty self-serving.

...he knew full well that Obama hates the military and would appoint an incompetent if he left.

He did.

[laplata]

She has been in it up to her neck since high school. Alinsky was her mentor. Expect worse, not better.

---

You’re exactly right. Hitlery would “fine tune” the destruction of our country.

[DuncanWaring]

The Won is just a marionette, dancing on the strings of whoever the barbarians are on the other end of his BlackBerry.

[Liz]

Gates Expresses Contempt for VP Biden: as a man who “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”Mr. Gates said he opposed Mr. Biden’s proposed limited strategy in Afghanistan to focus on counter-terrorism: “Whac-A-Mole hits on Taliban leaders weren’t a long term strategy,” Gates writes.

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

[SaraJohnson]

The Democrat nominee will go after single payer health care reform and the left will love whoever spouts this “reform.”

[SaraJohnson]

The Democrat nominee will go after single payer health care reform and the left will love whoever spouts this “reform.”

[Cyber Liberty]

The more I read of this book from Gates, the less I respect him...and I never thought very highly of him to begin with. Yes, he’s saying things we already know about the Child King, but he enabled that brat.

[Rockitz]

Even that magnificent bastard, Karl Rove agrees with me.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/01/12/Rove-Gates-waited-Untill-After-Election-on-memoir-to-avoid-hurting-Obama

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said on “Fox News Sunday”:

“Some Gates insiders have told me this book was essentially ready before the 2012 election. Gates made a deliberate decision to delay his publication until well after the election so as not to have the incendiary charges intrude into the election, I think that is a statement about his character.”

[dfwgator]

Day late and a dollar short.

[okie01]

I wonder who the Left Left would run against her? Maxine Waters? Pelosi? Reid? Weiner?

Fauxcahontas.