Praise for the New Defense Budget
For more analysis on yesterday’s defense budget analysis see Robert Farley, Spencer Ackerman, Fred Kaplan, and James Fallows. All are impressed, and all rightly so.
This is the move that justifies the decision to keep Robert Gates on at the Pentagon. Any new Defense Secretary, no matter how brilliant, would have had to have spent his first three months in office building relationships with the top military commanders and focusing on filling out the DOD civilian staff. Only a Secretary who’s already been in office could have the ability to propose sweeping change. But only a president who’s brand new could have the popularity and honeymoon effect necessary to have any hope of driving the changes through congress. Hence the appeal of the odd alignment of new president and old defense secretary.
10 Responses to “Praise for the New Defense Budget”
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April 7th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Hmmm . . . the President, at the time of the announcement, was out of the country, leaving the Republican Gates to take the initial heat . . . the President is occupied making speeches that both assert our right to take action against enemies while re-assuring foreign powers that we would do so in a civilized manner . . . with the President gone, John McCain gets to see himself on TV supporting the reforms.
These people cover the bases like a World Series contender. Every play, every pitch, every alley.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:39 am
It’s kinda hard to gear up for a land war on the Asian continent when you have to borrow the money for the war from the ..uh..Asian continent.
And the switch to Plan B — instead of Technology, increase the amount of cannon fodder in the Army and Marines — is not likely to prevail. With over 1 billion people, China has a lot more cannon fodder than we do.
Plus those highly destructive saboteurs in the Financial Industry still seem to be running around loose. A few have even infiltrated the White House.
Anyone seen any indictments handed down? Any arrests made?
April 7th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Well-said Matthew. I think this is an illuminating issue – one where the Obama team once again shows itself to play the long-game while so many pundits, analysts and bloggers play the short-term, reactive game.
As written here: It’s becoming a dividing line on which analysis to take seriously.
April 7th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Probably a good time, Matt, to step forward and say openly that you were wrong when you griped about keeping Gates, because you thought it said the wrong things about Dems and Defense.
The fact that Gates was a Bush appointee gives him enormous cover on this issue, and again, while your point that Dems shouldn’t be excluded from the job was and is a good one, I think Obama was wise to realize that he possibly could get more done with a Republican.
Dan’s right: never forget that Obama always plays chess not checkers.
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/defense_its_for_democrats_too.php
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/how_about_a_democrat.php
April 7th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
petty nitpick: whose not who’s. (The nature of blogging — just trying to help.)
April 7th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Crap — please delete that. I can’t read.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Good on Obama & Co. And I definitely seem to remember Matt Yglesias being against Gates staying on board. Not as viscerally as some other progressive bloggers—but a few broadsides were defintely fired. Might be a good time to admit that was a bit misguided on your part.
April 7th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
(Interesting to see that even correctors of MY get the contagion.)
I have to say that I always thought that keeping Gates would be the very smart thing to do (and said s0)–much better fit than he would have been with McCain. (I never saw the Dem-defense-crediility problem; the best way of increasing D credibility in defense is to be effective.)