The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to begin hearings the week of December 4 on the nomination of Bob Gates for secretary of defense.
One reason the President may be trying to get the Gates nomination through the lame-duck Republican Senate before Democrats take control of the Senate in January is old animosity between Gates and Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-VA), according to Bob Novak:
During President Ronald Reagan’s second term, Gates and Webb clashed as colleagues. Webb as secretary of the Navy objected to plans by Gates, then deputy national security adviser, for U.S. warships to protect oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. The hot-tempered Webb made clear his irritation with the soft-spoken Gates.
Whatever. In Novak’s world, all politics is petty paybacks and trifling personal slights.
What I don’t completely understand, quite frankly, is why Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), incoming chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and other Senate Democrats are not demanding full hearings on the Gates nomination after the first of the year. No one is eager for Rumsfeld to hold the post for a minute longer than necessary, but what better way for Democrats to begin to exert control over Iraq policy.
You want to do oversight on Iraq? Start there.
