I was thinking about writing a note about the nomination of Robert M. Gates to the position of Secretary of Defense. The problem is that when it gets down to it, my only real comment is meh, it could certainly be worse.
I believe that, on the whole, the purpose of Senate confirmation of Executive appointments (as opposed to Judiciary appointments, which are an entirely different kettle of proverbial) is to prevent the President from giving jobs to obviously unqualified and inappropriate buddies out of cronyism. Our Only President has done that, and the Senate has passed some of those people. On the other hand, there’s no reason why the Senate should prevent the President from giving jobs to obviously qualified and appropriate buddies. This is one reason why the President’s buddies should be a major matter for campaign debate.
Anyway, the way I usually put it is that the Senate should never deny confirmation to a candidate for an Executive position simply because that candidate will carry out the policies of the President. Nor is, as some people appear to be commenting, a difference of opinion between the President and his Secretary of Defense a Good Thing. A willingness to listen to differences, yes, the President should have that. A willingness even to change his mind, yes, that’s all good. But a willingness to appoint people who disagree on the job they are being hired to do? No, I can’t see how that’s good. Either the Secretary will do what he thinks is right, ignoring the President’s policies and making a mockery of our democratic republic, or the Secretary will carry out policies he thinks are misguided and wrong, which is bad for the execution of the policies.
Now, I don’t think that Mr. Gates actually does disagree with Our Only President about the prosecution of the war. At least, it’s hard for me to believe that he does. It’s a bit murky what Our Only President believes, as clearly he feels strongly that he need not tell us what policies he actually supports, and that telling us would often be bad for national security. Still, some of the alleged differences between Mr. Gates’ position and that of Our Only President seem to be more verbal than substantial. Are we winning? Are we losing? Are we leaving? Are we withdrawing? Are we repositioning? As far as I can tell, this administration really intends to hold things to as close as stasis as they can for, oh, another two years. Then they hand it over to a Democratic administration (I hope) and say good luck and good night. They have an exit strategy, it’s just for them, not for us.
Still, none of this strikes me as a good reason to deny confirmation to Mr. Gates. Yes, there are some reasons that might be good, mostly dealing with the willingness of Mr. Gates to accede to Congressional oversight, but honestly, we need to have somebody in that position, and given that (as I said above) it ought to be somebody roughly aligned with the rest of Our Only President’s cabal of incompetents and crooks, who would be significantly better?
The only real question that I would like to see addressed in the Senate—and it won’t be—is whether initial support for the invasion of Iraq is by itself enough evidence of poor judgment to prima facie compel denial. Not just for the Secretaryship, but for any position of power. A question of competence. I don’t think it is. I think it’s one factor to be considered, possibly to look for a series of mistakes of judgment. Speaking of a pattern of poor judgment being insufficient reason not to confirm someone for a high cabinet post, does it occur to anybody that, having appointed Secretary Rice specifically to avoid doing the traditional task of the Secretary of State, if Our Only President does decide to choose diplomacy, he will have to either fire her or choose somebody else to do her job while keeping her in title only?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.