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attaboy

k. spiff, I'm not inspired enough to slog through past posts. It's not worth it. If there is a victory to be had on your part, you're welcome to it. The point made is plenty of people have banged on about the Bush administration's handling of the war. Gates is part of the administration. He is the SoD. He advises the President.

I guess every time someone says "Bush" we should ask them to clarify whether they mean Bush personally or the Bush administration and if they mean the administration do they mean the administration prior to the traditional rollover of personal in a Presidents' second term, or maybe if they mean the administration we should have a roll call of those members of the Bush administration they might consider excluding from their overall criticism of the Bush administration. We'll slow things down to an insect's pace.

__________________
As a kid I always thought my nickname was "attaboy" until I realized they were rooting for the dog: "Attaboy, get 'em! Get 'em!".

Texpat

Yes Doctor Evil's TOP military adviser for the past two years is now about to become the Messiah's Secretary of Defense.

Boggles the mind, don't it?



But Gates is a good, honorable man, isn't he? Twenty-five years in the CIA.

Former Air Force -- at least he's got that going for him.

spiff

It only "boggles the mind" if you believed the pre-election rhetoric about Obama being some kind of anti-war extremist liberal - the evidence of is actions was plainly indicating otherwise.

For others it is not such a surprise that he should turn out to be just another shade of the same colour, so to speak.

Texpat

Mind the hazards as you back peddle through your own minefield ...

spiff

Right.
But you are not the one attacking other posters here for allegedly having made comments and being hypocritical.
A search for "Gates" by posts in Issues would take less than a minute. But it is more 'fun' to provoke and offend without doing one's homework, I suppose.

I can accept this as an argument.
On the other hand, Gates is not the one who makes the policy, he serves the president. I don't know enough about him nor the alternative choices to comment more specifically, but it does seem odd to pick the same SoD after all the hot air about changes.

sabang

The fact that Obama has nominated Gates to stay on as defence chief is surely indicative that he is comfortable with his performance in the job. Furthermore, he has retained a senior official under the moribund Bush administration- feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware that Bush retained anyone from the succesful Clinton administration when he was first elected?

So this Republican faux indignation is a charade. I naturally don't expect a staunch Republican to become pro Obama overnight, and I guess the comprehensive way the US people rejected the GOP must sting, but every action taken by Obama thus far in his transition phase comprehensively rebuts the panic mongering and virtual hysteria that has emanated from the Republican Right, ceaselessly, for the last 18 months or so.

I suppose this is what hurts the staunch Republican faithful the most, but brace yourselves for a sober, rational and popular Presidency.

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To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

spiff

Your 'arguments' are nothing more than personal attacks based on your imagination.

As one would expect from an uneducated individual defending his indoctrinated beliefs against reality.

Texpat

How do you reconcile that ^ with this \/ ?

August 26, 2007, eight months after Gates appointed Secretary of Defense...

Your boy Gates at the Pentagon helm during this terrorist atrocity?

Perhaps he was unaware of the atrocity... maybe he was on vacation ...

Not to worry, I'm sure the Messiah can heal him.

sabang

^ That oh Tex was a Fact. Back on topic, where is the criticism of Gates?

My only comment about Gates that I can recall is that he was an improvement on his predecessor.

AntRobertson

The funniest thing about all of this is that had Obama selected a Democrat for the position of SoD then the usual suspects on here would be griping on about his lack of backbone in prosecuting the 'War on Terror'.

Face it lads, it's about bending everything to fit preconceived ideas and ideals more than it is pragmatic facts and assessment.

__________________
"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them." — Steve Eley

Texpat

^^ I see, it was a criticism of the military (excluding the boss, who quite incidentally two years later is chosen by BO to remain.)

^ No, we're just giving you shit for criticizing US military policy over the past two years and now watching you try to tap dance around.

It's all fun. Gates will continue to be a great SecDef.

spiff

That's all you could find for comments about Gates, redneck?

AntRobertson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat ^ No, we're just giving you shit for criticizing US military policy over the past two years and now watching you try to tap dance around.

And you're being positively Michael Flatleyesque yourself in the contortions you're making to come to that conclusion.

Since nobody else could apparently be bothered I've done a quick serach and analysis of sabang's* posts using "Gates" as the search term: http://teakdoor.com/search.php?searchid=2489602

What I found was this: 23 instances of the word "Gates" appearing in his posts. Of those many more referred to Bill Gates as opposed to Robert Gates. Actually all but two of the posts I found that did reference Robert Gates came from this thread itself, and of the two that didn't one was a reference included in a quoted article (which I'm assuming was referencing Gates from his CIA days).

Further, the one direct quote I found from sabang outside of this thread was this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabang The Petraeus/ Gates team is unquestionably doing a far better job than it's predecessor, on every level

Hardly condemnation is it.

So from all of this I'm left with the conclusion that the plans and construction of your strawman are fundamentally flawed. Next.






*Not to single him out but the initial dispute did arise over his posts. And yes, I am that bored today.

Butterfly

You wouldn't know what a minefield is even if you were stepping on it,

raycarey

^^ well texpat, here's your chance to back up your claim.......

Texpat

sabang

It is you that is fretting.

DrivingForce

well that is really the point that had been made isn't it? all of the rest of your pedantic, hot air and blustering is just about you being your typically obtuse persona then wasn't it?? Ok, understood....

DrivingForce

wrong as usual.. it was never about any one single individual poster and even more over it was more about RC. maybe you should READ the posts before commenting instead of just skimming..

AntRobertson

... So it wasn't ever about any one single poster. But it was about Ray. Oh. Dear.

Here's the first post in this thread referencing Gates in relation to a single, defined, poster DF:Ever heard the expression: 'It's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt'. Now stop embarrassing yourself.