Could my day get any better??

True, Schwarzenegger took California, but that’s small potatoes compared to the beauty of the Democratic sweep of the House.

Unfortunately for Virginia, the red part of the state voted for a particularily nasty state consitutional amendment. I’m not surprised that it passed.  I am seriously considering moving to Maryland. I’ve lived in Dixie (Georgia and Virginia) for almost 20 years and I can’t stand the stench of bigotry that permeates the South.  I now realize why General Sherman had his troops burn everything.

Now that that Frankenstein’s monster-coifed Bush lapdog Bob Erlich is out, and probably corrupt but more telegenic dem Martin O’Malley is in, you’ve got all the more reason to head up here to Maryland itdont!

North Virginia should be its own state.

Can someone enlighten us to what we might expect from this Robert Gates character?

Perhaps you’ve seen it, but it bears re-showing, just for the little expression on said ex-SECDEF’s face:

Rummy, in the end, gets it.

did

Can someone enlighten us to what we might expect from this Robert Gates character?

More of the same:

Robert Gates, the former director of the CIA during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and who was tapped Tuesday by the president to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, is part of Texas’s good ol’ boy network. He may be best known for playing a role in arming Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein with American made weapons in the country’s war against Iran in the 1980’s.

Gates, who currently is president of Texas A&M University, came under intense fire during confirmation hearings in the early 1990’s for being unaware of the explosive situation in Iraq in the 1980’s, and the demise of the Soviet republic.

Gates joined the CIA in 1966, and spent eight years there as an analyst before moving over to the National Security Council in 1974. He returned to the CIA in 1980, and a year later was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve as deputy director for intelligence. Five years later, he was named deputy director for the agency, the number two post in the agency. In 1989, he was appointed deputy director of the National Security Council and in 1991, when the first Bush administration was in office, he was named director of the spy shop.

During contentious Senate confirmation hearings in October 1991 - that are bound to come up again - Gates’s role in cooking intelligence information during the Iran-contra scandal was revealed. It was during those hearings that senators found out about a December 2, 1986, 10-page classified memo written by Thomas Barksdale, the CIA analyst for Iran. That memo claimed that covert arms sales to the country demonstrated “a perversion of the intelligence process” that is staggering in its proportions.

The Barksdale memo was used by Gates’s detractors to prove he played an active role in slanting intelligence information during his tenure at the agency under Reagan. Eerily reminiscent of the way CIA analysts were treated by Vice President Dick Cheney during the run-up to the Iraq war three years ago, when agents were forced to provide the Bush administration with intelligence showing Iraq being a nuclear threat, Barksdale said he and other Iran analysts “were never consulted or asked to provide an intelligence input to the covert actions and secret contacts that have occurred.”

Barksdale added that Gates was the pipeline for providing “exclusive reports to the White House” intelligence that was “at odds with the overwhelming bulk of intelligence reporting, both from U.S. sources and foreign intelligence services.”

Source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110806R.shtml

Robert Gates, the former director of the CIA during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and who was tapped Tuesday by the president to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, is part of Texas’s good ol’ boy network. He may be best known for playing a role in arming Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein with American made weapons in the country’s war against Iran in the 1980’s.

Dammit, they simply gave Rummy a new face!

He may be best known for playing a role in arming Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein with American made weapons in the country’s war against Iran in the 1980’s.

Priceless        

It would seem that some rats will flee a ship that appears to be staying afloat.

If you ask me, it was a defense mechanism. It gives Bush leverage to point a finger in Rumsfeld’s direction and say, “Look, I got rid of the problem.” Pretty much just a way to dodge some of the oncoming shrapnel headed his way.

great. :-|

While at Indiana University, Gates was recruited to join the Central Intelligence Agency. However, the CIA offered no exemption from the draft during the Vietnam War. Before joining the CIA full-time as an intelligence analyst, he spent two years in the Air Force. During one posting, at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, he delivered intelligence briefings to ICBM missile crews. [5]

Gates left the CIA in 1974 to serve on the National Security Council staff but returned to the CIA in late 1979. He was named the Director of the DCI/DDCI Executive Staff in 1981, Deputy Director for Intelligence in 1982, and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence from April 18, 1986, to March 20, 1989. He was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence in early 1987, but withdrew the nomination after it became clear the Senate would reject it due to controversy[6] about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Senate members later questioned the nomination for the additional reason that Gates allegedly passed intelligence to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.[7]

Gates was Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from March until August of 1989, and was Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser from August 1989 until November 1991.

He was nominated (for the second time) for the position of Director of Central Intelligence by President Bush on May 14, 1991, confirmed by the Senate on November 5, and sworn in on November 6, becoming the only career officer in the CIA’s history (as of 2005) to rise from entry-level employee to Director. Deputy Directors during his tenure were Richard J. Kerr (from November 6, 1991, until March 2, 1992) and Adm. William O. Studeman (from April 9, 1992, through the remainder of Dr. Gates’ tenure). He served until 1993.

During his 26-year career as an intelligence professional, he spent almost nine years on the National Security Council, serving four Presidents of both major political parties.

In 1996, his memoirs were published under the title From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War.

Gates has been highly decorated for his service: he was the recipient of the National Security Medal and the Presidential Citizens Medal, was twice awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and three times received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

Involvement in the Iran-Contra Scandal

Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment of Gates for his Iran-Contra activities or his responses to official inquiries.

Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel’s investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested in a letter to the Independent Counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would “significantly bear on the fitness” of Gates for the CIA post.

Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr.[8] The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.

Grand Jury secrecy rules hampered Independent Counsel’s response. Nevertheless, in order to answer questions about Gates’ prior testimony, Independent Counsel accelerated his investigation of Gates in the summer of 1991. This investigation was substantially completed by September 3, 1991, at which time Independent Counsel determined that Gates’ Iran-Contra activities and testimony did not warrant prosecution.

Independent Counsel made this decision subject to developments that could have warranted reopening his inquiry, including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA’s former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision, the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates’s status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George’s first trial in the summer of 1992, but Gates was never called.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates

Once met Mr. Rumsfeld at a coffeeshop years years back. Almost 20 years ago.

He was in a fuck of a mood and gave the waitresses a bad time.

That was an indicator of he could do as Secretary. He fucked up the nation and got lots of our boys killed in godforsaken iraq

I believe that you can tell what kind of a person somebody is just by watching how he treats the waitstaff.  Some hiring managers take prospective employees out to lunch just to see how they treat the waitstaff.  One manager I knew when I lived in a small town took it one step further, he had arranged in advance with the waitress for her to mix up the prospective employee’s order.

Well I did feel good about Rummy leaving… no thanks to any of you…

Did: that was too fucking funny!!