True, Robert Gates is a Bush crony, well schooled in the black arts of deception, and with not-just-a-little blood on his hands from his years in Poppy's CIA running guns to Osama and the Taliban Warlords. But he's our only choice for Secretary of Defense.
Why, You ask?
Joe Lieberman... that's why.
While Joementum appears reluctantly headed back to the Democratic fold after his near-death experience in Connecticut, we all know that Bush and Rove would LOVE to coax him out of that senate seat, and will go to great lengths to do it. If he were to leave the Senate, his replacement would be a Republican appointed by Connecticut's GOP Governor Jodi Rell. That, dear friends, would tip the senate.
Joe's name has already been floated by the Administration as a possible successor to Rumsfield during an earlier bout with bipartisanship, and Joe sounded none too convincing in waving it off. (After all... if ever there was a man with a General's complex, it's Joe Lieberman). Today, Bush doesn't have the political capital to make such a calculated and explosive move. But if Gates' nomination is withdrawn after contentious weeks of Democratic grilling during the confirmation process, that dynamic might change. They could nominate Joementum "for the good of the country" and, trust me, the media would run with it. Rove may even go so far as to leak dirt on his own nominee to jump start this scenario.
So let's make nice with Gates, agree to early hearings, and vote to confirm him before Christmas.