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Obama’s SecDefs Offer Brutal Assessment of the Administration
Bret Baier of Fox News interviewed each of President Obama’s former Secretaries of Defense. All three were brutal in their assessment of the administration’s micromanaging, poor leadership, and lack of experience.
Robert Gates, SecDef 2006-2011
“It was the operational micromanagement that drove me nuts. Of White House and NSC staffers calling senior commanders out in the field and asking them questions, of second-guessing commanders…
“I told commanders, Petraeus and others … you get a call from some White House or National Security Council staffer, you tell them to call me instead. And then tell them, ‘Oh, by the way, go to hell — and that’s directly from the Secretary of Defense.’”
Leon Panetta, SecDef 2011-2013
“Staff people try to read what is it that the President wants and then try, through the back door, to influence the direction of policy. What that does is it undermines the very process that a President needs in order to get the best discussion and information possible to be able to make the right decisions.”
Chuck Hagel, SecDef 2013-2015
“President Obama, he’s one of the youngest Presidents we’ve ever had; one of the most inexperienced Presidents we’ve ever had. He has a staff around him that is very inexperienced. I don’t think there’s one veteran on his senior staff at the White House. I don’t think there’s one businessperson. I don’t believe there’s one person who’s ever run anything. Other than Vice President Biden, none of them have ever been elected to anything.
“You must leaven the loaf, you must leaven your advisors where you get a lot of experience in different things where he, the President himself, is so inexperienced. I think he’s got to fundamentally understand — and I’m not sure he ever did, nor the people around him —
the tremendous responsibility the United States has. Not to be the world’s policemen,
but to lead and we’re the only ones who can.”
Whichever candidate winds up in the White House next January will have a hell of a mess to clean up.
Published in Foreign Policy, Military, Politics
You are projecting what you believe Trump will do with what Clinton has actually done. This is an apples and oranges comparison, and moreover, a dangerous one because people often project their wishes onto the unknowns.
Um, I’m not a Trump supporter. I’m not projecting anything onto Trump. I think even his supporters have no flipping clue what he’ll do.
I just know without question I’m not voting for Felony or any other Democrat. Maybe you missed my point up-thread.
I never said you were.
Looks like we disagree about the significance of these words: “he may retain just enough of his humanity …” To me it sounds like projection.
I saw your point, but it didn’t seem relevant to mine. Right now, the attempts to find Trump favorable to Hillary smell of projection. Though now that you mention it, I don’t fault conservatives for wanting to vote for Hillary instead.
Especially with this one. They’ll all be called racist.
This administration has been a slow motion disaster for the military.