Word: gateses
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Keeping Gates would allow Obama to demonstrate bipartisanship in national security, an area particularly dear to Republicans. (But it might also be taken as a sign that the Democratic bench on military matters is so weak the party has to rely on a holdover from a GOP Administration.)
To keep or cashier Gates may be the Capital's latest guessing game, because there are good reasons for Obama to consider both options:
Keeping Gates would make for a smoother transition amid two wars. (But that's why the uniformed military leaders who are actually running the wars, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, don't change when a new Administration takes over.)
Keeping Gates as the Defense Secretary would allow him to continue his push to focus the military's efforts on insurgencies of the type it's facing in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than on the hypothetical conventional wars for which it would prefer to plan - and for which it continues...
Keeping Gates in place would demonstrate Obama's self-confidence in the presidency by entrusting a key post in his cabinet post to a GOP appointee. (But if Obama slows his planned pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, as some in the military want him to do, he could be...