Panic at the DOD
I agree with Spencer Ackerman that folks really shouldn’t read anything into Bill Gertz’s report that “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is asking many of the Bush administration’s 250 Pentagon political appointees to remain on the job until the incoming Obama administration finds replacements.”
The article was given the headline “EXCLUSIVE: Obama wants Bush war team to stay” and succeeded in distressing Chris Bowers, but the facts don’t support any such interpretation. The reality is that Barack Obama will be president in less than 30 days, some of which are major holidays. He’s not going to be able to churn out 11 Pentagon subcabinet officials per business day between now and then. And when you consider that the exact time constraints exist in every administration, the task becomes even more impossible. He faces the choice, as do all incoming administrations, of having his predecessor’s appointees lingering on for a while as he lines up replacements and gets them confirmed or else of having a million vacancies amidst the department’s senior leadership. The former is difficult to deal with, but the latter is worse. And the challenge, realistically, is that you have no leverage with which to persuade people to stay. Bush appointees need to be looking for their next job. And if you get a good offer that will be rescinded if you can’t start by February 2, you really need to take the offer.
24 Responses to “Panic at the DOD”
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December 24th, 2008 at 10:17 am
It doesn’t take much to distress Chris Bowers, who has never allowed substance to interfere with appearances.
December 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am
O should just fire the Bush leftovers and leave the positions empty. Start downsizing the Pentagon. Cap the number of field-grade and general officers at the levels of WWII and retire all the rest. Close down our worldwide military bases and assignments and bring the boys home. Let Germany and Korea defend themselves.
December 24th, 2008 at 11:16 am
tla,
I’m with you in spirit, but that’s not the way to go about it.
If you’ve got a Lincoln and decide it’s too big and heavy, you don’t just yank off the hood, the muffler, and back seat, and the carburetor. You trade it in for a Jetta. You keep it running, and the first chance you get, you drive it to the dealership and trade it in for a different car.
BTW, we had a buttload more field grade and general officers in WW2 than we do today.
December 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
The civil servant SES deputies to the politcal appointees are more than capable of the day to day management. If the politcal appointees were keep on, they would still not be making any real policy decisions or making any significant changes.
On a similar note, are all of the current U.S. attorney’s going to be fired January 20 to include Mr. Fitzgerald in Illinois.
December 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
We would just like to say that we support this hyper-timid incrementalism despite the election mandate of the last two cycles, which was to clean house at the Pentagon. Thank you.
December 24th, 2008 at 11:39 am
While Bowers my be quick to distress, Yglesias is a uniform apologist – a symptom that serves nobody.
Every time Obama makes a pick or votes poorly or betrays a constituency, yglesias creates some cover along various lines
1) Sometimes it’s that he uses non progressive cabinet pick(a la Lahood) for cover to institute his secret transportionist or super liberal agenda
or
2) He is the ultimate decider and he is surrounding himself with useless cipthers to fulfill his grand bargain agenda. He neither relies on their knowledge or needs there support -he is the decider.
or
3) Troublesome liberals just need to relax. Look how far we’ve come or some such twaddle. Obama is runnning the most liberal campaign in thirty years.
Well, we dont know exactly what he will do, but this is much less a function of his committed liberalism than the fact the country has by and large moved to the left on the significant issues – Iraq, Health Care, redistributive economics, stimulus etc.
So I take Yglesias’ soft pedaling of every poor choice by Obama to be a reflexive apologists response. This is no surprise. After he was editorially neutered, he said he wanted to work with “movers and shakers” like John Podesta. It’s symptomatic of someone more interested in gaining acceptance and pleasing the right people than an independent minded journalist.
As Paul Krugman recently mentioned at he National Press Club, to be respected in foreign policy, you need to have been wrong about Iraq. It’s really a prerequisite to the club. Which begs the question why? I think its a result of a culture of deference and sanitization; one which seeks to not offend but curry favor with the powerful.
Which way did Matt swing on Iraq, again? I forget.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Re Bill Gertz
Why anyone would take seriously any crap written by lying fascist fucktard asshole Bill Gertz is beyond my imagining.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Sam Stein reported that the reason for the slower pace of appointments to the Defense Department is that no one wants to take the jobs, since they may only turn out to be one-year jobs in the outgoing Gates regime.
Maybe Obama should have just cut the Gordian knot, and picked his own damn Democratic SoD, instead of listening to the apostles of bipartisanship and continuity with the Bush Era – including CAP’s Brian Katulis?
December 25th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Which way did Matt swing on Iraq, again? I forget.
Right for about 98% of the war . . .
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