Hey, We got beat Fair and Square

Mike Whitney

The hearings for Robert Gates were about as weird as it gets. Gates wasn’t asked one tough question the whole time. It was all a meaningless formality. Besides, Gates had all the qualifications the senate was looking for. In other words, he wasn’t Rumsfeld and that’s all that mattered. For Gates it was more like Coronation Day than a serious inquiry into past indiscretions. Did anyone care about his involvement in Iran-Contra and his propensity to "fix the intelligence to fit the policy" or were they too busy showering him with praise? And, what happened to our tough new Democratic majority? Did the midterm elections really change anything? Oh, yeah; we traded a rubber-stamp Republican congress for a rubber-stamp Democratic congress. Now that’s progress. No one bothered to ask Gates how he felt about military tribunals, although that will be one of his many responsibilities as Secretary of Defense...

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