Close The Gates

If these were normal circumstances, I would be first in line to say, "Good riddance!" and more unprintable things:

Let's remember why Gates became SecDef in the first place: because the GOP took it in the shorts in the 2006 midterms and President Bush needed a sacrificial goat to offer up as a burnt offering to the triumphant Donks.  "Big Dog" Rumsfeld was the more or less inevitable choice, especially as Dubya wasn't going to run up the white flag on the War on Terror itself.  And he needed a RINO replacement that his enemies would at least tolerate whose biggest selling point was that he was the "anti-Rumsfeld".  Bob Gates filled that bill depressingly well.

I give him no credit for the Surge, which was General Petraeus' strategy and its saving of the Iraqi front his achievement.  I do give him considerable blame for the "hollowing" out of the U.S. military over the past few years, going along to get along with the cancellation of one vital weapons system after another, particuarly the F-22 Raptor that is needed desperately to replace the aging (to be charitable) '70s-era F-15 Fighting Falcon and F-16 Eagle, which are (sometimes literally) being flown until they disintegrate in mid-air.  Just as the last time the nation was exposed to great risk of devastating war through military weakness under Mr. Peanut, hungry, rapidly arming rivals are moving up fast on our heels, on course to overtake us sooner rather than later, and we'll "discover" it the hard way (see Pearl Harbor).

But as I said...well, implied above, these are not ordinary circumstances.  Red Barry kept Gates on (and didn't he just fit right in like a glove?) because he wanted to focus on communizing domestic policy and let Gates try to keep Afghanistan off the public radar screen.  If the current SecDef is getting the "time with family" urge, B.O. will be looking at a much more closely divided - and maybe even Republican-controlled - Senate to which he'll have to submit Gates' replacement.  In the current Congress I'd have made a prediction of Cindy Sheehan only half-jokingly, but next year Lucifer is going to be at least potentially left in a very tight spot, with his leftwingnut base demanding, well, at least someone LIKE Cindy Sheehan, and Republicans with the power to compel a serious choice at least no worse than Gates was.

Whether they'll exercise that power is another question entirely, which is why unserious trial balloons are already being floated.  John Noonan is probably right that it'll be a no-name nominee whose obscurity will make for a smaller target, while still being of The One's anti-American, anti-military like mind, and give him another chance to indulge in more identity politics "historifying".

On the bright side, that will almost certainly guarantee a national security disaster before the '12 election, and another crisis for King Hussein to exploit before he gets third-railed back to Chicago, or wherever the heck he decides to spend his long, long exile.

Betcha he won't use the "time with family" dodge, though; after all this time off, I kinda doubt they'll be able to stand the sight of each other.