The Beltway Insiders and Pundits say the following about Gates retention:
1. He wants to go and at most will stay a year, and
2. That most of his Deputy and Assistant Secretaries he currently has will leave, and be replaced.
The concern is that Item #2 will leave him isolated and ineffective during his remaining tenure. I think Secretary Gates has done a great job and he should be treated as an outstanding resource by the incoming administration.
That's not exactly how it works.
We change out political appointees so that the incoming administration has a modicum of control over the bureaucracy. The alternative is "Yes, Minister" of BBC fame.
Gates will work with White & Flournoy to ensure he gets a team that he can work with. There will be compromises, but for now it's his organization. In fact, one could argue that he'll have more say over the new team than he had over the old one. Gates has also shown that he is willing to fire those who cross him.
Bottom line, I'm not expecting a bunch of fireworks on this.
the pundits are right on Icebreaker's #2. The direct reports to the SecDef are all PASs and the new adminstration has the perogative to appoint new ones, regardless of whether the present PSA wants to stay. Some have already begun to depart (Ryan Henry and Tina Jonas being the most prominent). My own punditry feels that Obama will work with Gates on vetting candidates.
"What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women."
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught. — Sydney J. Harris
Absolutely.
The expectation/protocol is that every political appointee of the last administration will submit his/her resignation effective Inauguration Day or before. In many cases this causes a mad rush for the door, in order to get the best positions in the civilian world, pending a reversal of political fortunes. Other times, folks stay on to the bitter end.
At the beginning of the Clinton administration, new appointments were slow. In OSD, that led to the situation where Jim Locher (a known entity to both parties from his SASC days) was asked to stay on in his ASD, SOLIC position and sign secretarial-level documents as the "senior civilian official".
Bush 43 left several political ambassadors in place just to prevent too much disruption in the foreign policy arena.
I am cautiously optimistic that the early naming of intended appointees will actually stabilize the transition process.
that part of the discussions (negotiations) with Sec Gates involved who he was comfortable working with. I don't believe that President-elect Obama will appoint a DEPSEc or a USD who is unacceptable to Gates. Lower level political appointees may be more problematic but they will be the problems of the USDs. That said, there are a bunch of talented folk who held political appointments in the Clinton administration who would likely be very acceptable to Sec Gates.
Cheers
JohnT
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