I have a prediction about Robert Gates

[Enrique]

just a prediction...

It will turn out that his criticisms of Obama are being exaggerated. That sometimes happens with book teases. When he goes on TV to promote his book, they will ask him about the criticisms and he will clarify and he will otherwise praise Obama substantially. This will cause the RWers to turn on Gates, whom they are now in love with.

Further, it will become clear that on policy, Gates is closer to Obama than he is to the neocons, who are currently ecstatic about Gates supposedly trashing Obama.

[Mutiny In Heaven]

1. Having read the NY Times article...

it's clear that his comments are more balanced than a lot of the shameful headlines suggest. Ain't nothing like controversy to get clicks.

[Katashi_itto]

2. Your likely right

[liberal N proud]

3. Sensationalism is what all the American media thrive on

[bemildred]

4. Hype is what they do. nt

[GoCubsGo]

5. Your prediction would be correct.

From what I have been hearing, the media has not only been exaggerating, they've been outright distorting what Gates wrote. Apparently, the vast majority of his criticisms are aimed at Congress, and not on President Obama. I guess he really despises Congress, as any sane person should.

[TwilightGardener]

6. I don't think the trashing of Joe Biden was exaggerated--or a throwaway paragraph.

Joe Biden's foreign policy ideas are very much aligned with Obama's, and John Kerry's. To say Biden has been wrong on EVERYTHING for 40 years is to say that Obama has been wrong, Kerry has been wrong--there isn't much they disagree on, after all. Gates isn't as much of a neocon wackaloon as others from BushCo, but he still is a neocon, supporting the neocon world view that Iraq needed to be fought, and Afghanistan should continue to be occupied to "stabilize" it. Had Gates gone after Obama more, it would have been VERY unseemly. So he takes it out on Joe--and yeah, I suspect Gates and Hillary Clinton are going to be massaging each other's legacies.