The Thirst for Freedom

So, is Barack Obama showing a bit of sense by keeping Gates as S of D?

Is this a message from him that in fact he is not going to rush troops out of Iraq?

That would be good and bad.

It would be bad because it would show that Barack Obama is willing to say one thing to get elected and then do another. Disgusting but not the first time a politician has done that.

It would be good because it would send the world a great message if the United States finished well in Iraq. It is possible to do so.

Stay until it’s done. That won’t take forever. Perhaps just a few more years.

From CNN.com:

Liberal blogger Chris Bowers of The Open Left says the message sent by the selection of Gates undermines Democrats.

“The message would be clear,” he writes in his blog. “Even Democrats agree that Democrats can’t run the military.”

Obama’s outspoken opposition to the Iraq war before he became a U.S. senator was one of the reasons he was embraced early in the presidential race by the anti-war faction of the Democratic Party’s base, so his apparent decision to keep a Bush adviser as defense secretary for at least a year has raised some eyebrows within that faction. [Read More]

So… Before George W. Bush and Company did all the hard work in Iraq, Obama wanted to pull out. Is he changing his mind now that he is getting real briefings on Iraq?

Here is a video from Fox News: