The Case for Keeping Gates

The Case for Keeping Gates – Nancy Soderberg and Brian Katulis, Washington Post opinion

Here’s a free piece of advice to President Barack Obama or President John McCain: There’s no need to look for a new secretary of defense. You already have the best man in the job.

The Obama campaign in particular seems to have noticed the virtues of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. It’s a little head-spinning to see senior Democrats lauding a Bush cabinet officer in the heat of the campaign, but earlier this month, Richard Danzig, the former Navy secretary who has become one of Obama’s closest national security aides, said that many of Gates’s pragmatic policies at the Pentagon “are things that Senator Obama agrees with and I agree with.” Danzig added that Gates could do “even better” if he stayed on the job in an Obama administration.

The case for Gates goes beyond the obvious question of assisting the next president in handling Iraq, which Gates has helped haul back from the brink of total collapse. But he has also been instrumental in launching a sweeping revolution in US national security…

Much more at The Washington Post.