Wednesday, January 08, 2014

About That Memoir

Robert Gates, first Bush's then Obama's Secretary of Defense, has been involved in many administrations in several different positions. The Obama administration is the first Democratic administration for which he has worked.  Obama asked him to stay on as his Defense Secretary.

Of course, I haven't read the book, nor will I, but the fact is that the memoir isn't even on the bookshelves, yet, so the only reviews we have are from people who have seen advance copies, so who knows what the man actually said?  Entities like Fox News and various newspapers that could be expected to comb through and find the opinions slamming the top people in the Obama administration.  

Funny that the only parts of the book  that have been aired are the parts that are highly critical of the Obama administration.  I haven't read a word about anything he might have said about his time with Bush, although history tells us that there were plenty of reasons to criticize him.  I'm going to assume he didn't have any criticism of Bush - at least not in this book.  But then, he is a Republican, so I expect we can assume that he was all in for Bush and the other administrations in which he has worked.

It seems he was a very unhappy camper while working for Obama, so one wonders why he didn't simply resign if he didn't agree with policies.  In fact, one wonders why he accepted Obama's invitation to stay on in the first place.

Of course, he has every right to express his opinion, but it does seem a bit unseemly of him to publish this particular memoir at this particular time. He is the only cabinet member in history to publish a criticism of a sitting president. He has worked in the current administration for five years without any clue that he was dissatisfied.  In fact, it seems he couldn't stand to wait until Obama is out of office.  After all, he probably wouldn't have received the attention by then that he has now.

I have a feeling he won't be very happy about the way his book is received in some quarters. He's probably not used to being criticized, himself.

Stay tuned.

5 comments:

Kathy's Klothesline said...

Seems like all the politicians are eager to point fingers at each other and love to profit from it!

Unknown said...
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Arkansas Patti said...

I see where it is all ready #4 on the Amazon Kindle best seller list. He won't be getting my money.
I did hear that he wrote about admiring Obama's intellect. You won't hear about that on Fox.

marlu said...

He did say a few things praising Obama's decisions but they haven't been widely reported. I won't buy the book either.
I say it's disrespectful to slam a sitting president after you stayed on in his cabinet.

marlu said...

He did say a few things praising Obama's decisions but they haven't been widely reported. I won't buy the book either.
I say it's disrespectful to slam a sitting president after you stayed on in his cabinet.