the Democrats should reject Gates and hold out for Anthony Zinni.

Gates appears to be one of George H.W.'s people. And maybe he will bring some reality into George W.'s world. I just WISH we only had a crummy little scandal such as Iran-Contra now, rather than Geo. W.'s World Quagmire III. I do not care about Gates's Iran-Contra history. H.W. was in Iran-Contra up to his eyeballs as well, but H.W. was much better for the USA and for the world than W.

We need to see whether Gates takes his cues from H.W., or from W. and Cheney. I know this whole argument could fall apart if some clever poster points out that Cheney himself was one of H.W.'s guys. But Gates could not possibly be worse than Rummie. We need to see what Gates does.

CNN had some hopeful information on Bob Gates. They place him squarely in the same camp as Baker, a cool pragmatist. They compared the Bush the son's ideologue based government with the father's pragmatic approach. It seems to me that between baker and Gates, daddy is once again sending his friends to get his son out a big mess, and much chastened Bush, seems ready to accept the help.

Tim put it this way in his item, "Gates, who met with Bush over the weekend in Crawford..."

Two questions come immediately to mind:

1. Did anyone notice at the time that Gates had come to Crawford?

2. Who ELSE came to visit Dubya?

Eagle-eyed reporters and cameramen, and assorted Bush-watchers of all stripes, may have seen other unexpected people, giving clues to OTHER changes in the last half of Bush's second term.

Anyone have any such information?

Whoops, posted that under the wrong War Room item :-)

I much prefer this take from The Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55018

Another "Cold War Specialist." Maybe He and Condi can discuss Uzbekistan while the Middle East burns.