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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew Yorker Article: Joe Biden Slams Ex-Defense Secretary Gates (and more)
from the New Yorker:
____ After more than five years in the White House, Obama leans less visibly on Biden for foreign-policy advice than he once did, but Biden remains so closely identified with the Administrations handling of the most vexing national-security problems that, when militants seized large parts of Iraq, in June, Mitt Romney told a mostly Republican audience that the Obama-Biden-Hillary Clinton foreign policy was to blame. The trials facing the President and the Vice-President, who are separated by nineteen years and a canyon in style, have brought them closer than many expectednot least of all themselves. John Marttila, one of Bidens political advisers, told me, Joe and Barack were having lunch, and Obama said to Biden, You and I are becoming good friends! I find that very surprising. And Joe says, Youre fucking surprised!
. . . Since entering the Administration, Biden has been a strident voice of skepticism about the use of American force. At times, that put him on the opposite side of debates from others in the Administration, including Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta, Obamas first C.I.A. director. Biden opposed intervention in Libya (as did Defense Secretary Robert Gates), arguing that the fall of Muammar Qaddafi would result in chaos; Biden warned the President against the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. If it failed, Biden said later, Obama wouldve been a one-term President. Though Obama heeded Bidens advice only sometimes, the two men adhered to a restrained foreign policy that avoids errors, as Obama put it to reporters in April. Asked to articulate an Obama doctrine, the President said, You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.
. . . In one of our interviews, Biden brought up the Gates book. Gates gets upset because I questioned the military. Well, I believe now, believed then, that Washington and Jefferson were all right: war is too important to be left to generals. It is not their judgment to make! Theirs is to execute. So I think youve seen a President who is loyal and supportive of the military but realizes hes the Commander-in-Chief. At one point, I started to speak, but Biden interrupted. I can hardly waiteither in a Presidential campaign or when Im out of hereto debate Bob Gates. Oh, Jesus.
I asked what he made of Gatess specific criticisms. He called Gates a really decent guy and then unloaded on him: Bob Gates is a Republican, with a view of foreign policy that is, in many fundamental ways, different from mine. Bob Gates has been wrong about everything! Bob Gates is wrong about the advice he gave President Reagan about how to deal with Gorbachev! That he wasnt real. Thank God the President didnt listen to him. Bob Gates was wrong about the Balkans. Bob Gates was wrong about the bombing. Bob Gates was wrong about the Vietnam War, for Christs sake. You go back, and everything in the last forty years, theres nothing that I can think of, major fundamental decisions relative to foreign policy, that I can think hes been right about!
read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/28/biden-agenda
randys1
(16,286 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)but instead he went personal and trashed the man's whole career. No one should have trusted Gates to serve in that administration, no matter how classy Obama tries to be about him now.
indepat
(20,899 posts)record of bad foreign decisions by BHO's hand-picked choice for SECDEF. Perhaps the moral of this saga is a Democratic president who picks a Republican SECDEF is, first and foremost, going to have a far-right agenda implemented in all policies and actions, i.e., assure the nation fosters belligerent right-wing nationalism assuring a grossly bloated MIC spending.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)And Hagel was an OK pick. Hagel was very critical of the Iraq war, very rare from a Republican, and his choices were generally anti-war.
indepat
(20,899 posts)which would certainly be the epitome of political cordiality, comity, and reaching across the aisle, especially in view of Gates' 40-year history of bad decisions in foreign policy matters per the Veep.
Response to joshcryer (Reply #4)
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BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)and he stayed in the job until 2011, a good chunk of the first term.
So much for the "Team of Rivals."
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)big article