Rivals, Retreads and Other Irrelevance

As he picks Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle and flirts with the former First Lady, there is a predictable chorus of criticism that going back to the Clinton years is not the change Barack Obama promised in his campaign.

Some of that was heard when he chose Joe Biden as his running mate, but Obama's goal all along was to persuade voters wary of his inexperience that the best of the past would not be swept away in rhetorical enthusiasm for the new.

He is fulfilling that promise and concentrating on the real change from the Bush-Cheney years, bringing competence back to Washington, wherever he finds it--in the over-touted Lincolnesque "team of rivals" or in the best of the 1990s.

Holder, the new Attorney General who served under Janet Reno, will have the monumental job of restoring Justice to its pre-Ashcroft, pre-Gonzales stature, as he indicated in a speech last June, citing that "disrespect for the rule of law is not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism."

"Our government," he said, "authorized the use of torture, approved of secret electronic surveillance against American citizens, secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants, and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution."

Obama's apparent willingness to consider keeping Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense is based on Gates' capable performance following Don Rumsfeld's ideological reign in the Pentagon, and there may well be places in the new administration for Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel and other able Republicans.

So far, Obama's choices have reflected well on his judgment about the judgment of those who will be helping him, regardless of their resumes. January 20th can't come a minute too soon.

Bittersweet Iraq Success Story

The good news is that roadside bomb fatalities this month are down by almost 90 percent from the last year, largely as a result of almost 7,000 heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles being rushed to Iraq since then.

The sad news is that four months ago members of Congress were seeking whistle-blower protection for a Pentagon analyst who claimed that hundreds of lives could have been saved if military paper pushers hadn't obstructed delivery of those vehicles three years earlier.

In February, a former Marine official named Franz J. Gayl went public with a report accusing the Corps of "gross mismanagement" in delaying deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years because MRAPs, which cost $1 million each, were a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years away from being fielded.

Hundreds of lives were lost, Gayl asserted, as requests of field commanders were buried in bureaucratic paperwork until Defense Secretary Robert Gates made them the No. 1 priority in 2007 after he replaced Donald Rumsfeld.

Gayl's revelations were greeted with Marine Corps denials. quibbles and promises of investigation.

Sens. Ted Kennedy and Claire McCaskill wrote Commandant James Conway that he seemed more focused on whether Gayl overstepped his authority than protecting him from retribution:

"Your statement today that the Marines Corps is investigating whether Mr. Gayl 'has done something other than what his leadership and his bosses have instructed him to do' clearly implies that the Marine Corps may be proceeding inappropriately to punish Mr. Gayl for his actions."

Two months later, Secretary Gates was telling USA Today: "The reaction of the troops in the field has been extraordinary...I had a wounded warrior who was here for a lunch a couple of weeks ago who was going around telling anybody who looked like they were in a position of authority that an MRAP had saved his life."

What happened to Franz J. Gayl? Google sayeth not, but lives and limbs are being saved in Iraq, at least in some measure because he spoke out. Many Marines and their families must feel differently about him than the top brass.

The Menace of Mr. Smooth

Not only was Robert Gates an Eagle Scout in his youth but he grew up to become president of the National Eagle Scout Association. Unlike his grating predecessor as Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, Gates is soporific and therein may lie his menace to America.

Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”

All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.

In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.

After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.

From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.

It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.

Bad Bush Movies

If this Administration were a Hollywood studio, it would have been shut down after the “Heaven’s Gate” of wars in Iraq and the “Ishtar” of disasters in New Orleans.

No one wants to watch, but they still keep grinding them out. Alberto Gonzales is starring in an extravagant remake of “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” with a cast of thousands as the bounty hunters.

This week, the cameras roll on a new version of “Into the Mouth of Madness” with Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates as the intrepid couple looking for answers in places where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable.

Meanwhile, in the White House, George Bush himself is doing a final cut on “Battlefield Earth,” while Dick Cheney prepares for his close-ups in “Godzilla, the Musical.”

"Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?"

The immortal words of Casey Stengel come to mind for the Bush Administration’s latest moves in the Middle East. Casey’s incompetent Mets were only losing baseball games. This bunch is playing with our country’s future.

The most recent tragi-comedy of errors is reported in today’s New York Times:

“The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to total $20 billion over the next decade at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.”

Counterproductive is a euphemism for exporting radicals to car bomb our troops there while King Abdullah tells Arab heads of state that Americans in Iraq are “an illegal foreign occupation.”

Next week, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will go to Saudi Arabia to ask the Saudis, please, to “make clear to Sunnis engaged in violence in Iraq that such actions are ‘killing your future.’”

At the same time, to allay the fears of our most reliable ally, the Bush team is promising to increase military aid to Israel to $30.4 billion over the next decade. There is nothing like a little arms race to promote stability in a trigger-happy region.

There may be some devilishly clever, subtle master strategy in all this but, based on past performance, they might do well to consider Casey Stengel’s advice for managing tough situations: “The secret is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.”