secretary robert

Tomorrow the man who defines everything against progressiveness is set to leave the White House:

President Obama will give his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a send-off Friday as Mr. Emanuel officially announces his departure from the West Wing to run for mayor of Chicago, officials familiar with the decision said.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, at his daily briefing on Thursday afternoon said that the president will give two personnel announcements on Friday morning from the East Room of the White House. Mr. Gibbs, admitting that he was being purposely “oblique,” would not confirm whether the announcements would concern Mr. Emanuel.

Tata Rahm. You won’t be missed.

Last night the New York Times published a late night bombshell:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

I’m sure we will hear a lot of right wingers saying this is a failure of the Obama administration and his policies towards Iran, but let’s think a little further into history. Iran revved up their nuclear ambitions in 2003. A majority of President Bush’s tenure was having to figure out how to deal with a nuclear Iran, yet they never came up with a plan either. If so, then we would have a plan. So all this started before President Obama was even Senator Obama.

And 2003 is an important year to remember, since that’s the year that we invaded Iraq and changed the political landscape of that part of the Middle East. Any plans that existed at the time were pretty much nullified with the changes that were happening by the tip of our sword.

Well everything except for minor things like trying to pressure Joe Lieberman into it:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted once more that President Obama did everything he could to get a public option through the Senate, even if the administration never talked to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) about his opposition to the provision.

On Tuesday, Gibbs reiterated that President Obama "absolutely" did everything he could to ensure that a government-run insurance option was part of the final legislative product. Pressed by the Huffington Post as to why no one from the administration ever reached out to Lieberman to alleviate his concerns about the proposal, the press secretary said he didn't want to "rehash" the past.

That’s what Politico is trying to push:

When CNBC’s Rick Santelli argued last week that President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan would force hardworking Americans to pay for their neighbors’ mistakes, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed him as a know-nothing derivatives trader out of touch with Main Street.

But if the White House simply dismisses Santelli’s point, it may do so at its peril: A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 55 percent of those surveyed thought federal mortgage subsidies to those most at risk of losing their homes would be “rewarding bad behavior.”

Now this might seem like a stark contrast to the CBS/NYTimes poll that showed people supporting helping the homeowners by over a 2-1 margin, but a closer look at Rasmussen’s poll quickly explains why. For starters, the question that Politico nitpicked really doesn’t say much. Sure people might think its rewarding “bad behavior”, but that doesn’t mean they reject the idea of giving that help. Many people views TARP in the same light, but they are still willing to give that help.

But there is more to this. For example:

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans are not willing to pay higher taxes to help people who cannot afford to make their mortgage payments. Fourteen percent (14%) say higher taxes for this purpose are okay with them. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.

Where in the plan does it say taxes are raising? This is something Rasmussen is making up in order to craft their desired response, much like this:

No big surprise here:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Barack Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state, officials said.

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, former Marine commandant and commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, will be named national security adviser, the officials said.

I think it’s a good move. Keeping someone around who might know where the bodies are buried can be beneficial.

The Turkey incursion into Northern Iraq is really heating up. 77 Kurdish rebels were killed over night and Turkey is making a stronger presence in northern Iraq.

Robert Gates finally addressed the situation:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a message for Turkish leaders: Get your troops out of northern Iraq in the next few days.

"It's very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave," Gates said before heading to Ankara late Wednesday from India. "They have to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty. I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that, not months."

Gates said he also will ask Turkish leaders in a series of meetings Thursday to address some of the complaints of the Kurds, and move from combat to economic and political initiatives to solve differences with them.

Translation: How dare you occupy the country we are occupying.

Yesterday our defense secretary, Robert Gates, blamed NATO for the problems in Afghanistan. Needless to say they didn't take to kindly to that criticism and now Gates is trying to save face:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that sending U.S. Marines to Afghanistan will keep pressure on the Taliban and doesn't "reflect dissatisfaction" with NATO countries' performance.

He was trying to smooth over comments a day earlier that sparked an international furor. The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Gates said U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan are doing a terrific job but that he is concerned that NATO allies are not well-trained in counterinsurgency operations.

"Allied forces ... have stepped up to the plate and are playing a significant and powerful role in Afghanistan," Gates told a Defense Department news conference, which officials said had purposely been rescheduled for earlier in the day Thursday to meet European news deadlines.