Obama, Gates Keep Bush Political Appointees At Defense

By Cernig

I can't believe this is a good thing:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has asked most Bush administration political appointees except those targeted for dismissal to stay on in the Pentagon until replaced by the Obama administration in the coming months.

"I have received authorization from the president-elect's transition team to extend a number of Department of Defense political appointees an invitation to voluntarily remain in their current positions until replaced," Mr. Gates said in an Dec. 19 e-mail to political appointees.

The chance to stay is "available to all willing political appointees with the exception of those who are contacted individually and told otherwise," he stated.

Apparently, Gates had asked for permission to keep around 250 Bush-era officials and Obama has now granted it.

Other federal agencies are not keeping political appointees, including the state, justice and homeland security departments that are planning personnel changes without Bush administration appointees in place.

Continuity in war-time? Only it isn't a real war (two still-failing occupations and the actions of small bands of extremists don't constitute a war) and these officials haven't exactly being doing a stellar job. Given the way Gates and Bush's generals have been talking recently about parsing the agreement with Iraq, it's beginning to look like the DoD tail is setting up to wag the White House dog.

Comments

[Peter G.]

Oh well. A little continuity can't hurt. I'm not sure anyone could make the two flaming bags of dog shit into which Iraq and Afghanistan have devolved much better. Perhaps a little diplomacy might help. In a few weeks we'll see.