Obama 'gutting military' by purging generals

[Ed Anger]

Are they throwing out their old crt monitors?

They just got Apple displays.

[grumbler]

Seems to me that in Gates' quote, Obama isn't speaking to national security either. He is - jokingly it seems - making sure that the meeting won't be spun in a counter factual direction down the road in someone's memoirs, presumably for political purposes... and here Gates is, spinning the meeting in a different direction for political purposes in his memoirs, while acting offended at the implication that he might spin the meeting for political purposes in his memoirs.

In Gates' quote he's talking about deliberations regarding Iran and Israel.  Iran obviously is intimately connected to national security concerns.

But Gates is obviously spinning the meeting that he isn't talking about, and it is obviously for unknown "political purposes."  That's why Jake is laughing at Gates, and why I am laughing at Jake and his amusing characterization of things.  Like this: 

[Razgovory]

And why the rest of us are laughing at Grumbler.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm too headachy to laugh at anyone. 

[DontSayBanana]

That's so oddly specific that it was probably a joke.  Just another case of Gates (and Grumbler) being tone-deaf, IMO.

[Sheilbh]

Some pretty intense comments by Gates, much of which I can understand. Some troubling things there. Congress too gets reamed, and rightly so. Too many in Congress do what's best for them politically rather than best for the important national issues. What I don't really understand is how Gates, as Sec Defense and confidant of/to the administration, comes out with a book like this revealing all the unsavory sides while he was serving and had the confidence of officials in the admin.

From what I've read the majority of the book is positive about Bush and Obama - but those bits are generally not going to be the juicy interesting ones that get quoted. Also to be honest I think we're way past the stage where we can be precious about this. Practically speaking there's a relatively limited window for a politician's memoir and they're going to take advantage of it. He wants to make money that means his book needs to be at least mildly interesting and release before everyone stops caring.

Any potential unpleasantness is heavily mitigated by the fact that most books like this are turgid and self-serving. They're primarily enjoyed by masochists. Gates's actually sounds relatively interesting.

The difference is that the secrets Obama was talking about are ones that can harm the country.

I don't see how that changes the line being funny and perhaps showing a little lack of self-awareness.

It doesn't particularly imperil US security if everyone knows that Gates disagrees with Biden about policy.

No. But I wonder if there is a serious issue here. Everyone in government eventually writes a memoir or publishes their diary. I do wonder if that can inhibit conversation at the top. I think Alastair Campbell (who kept a diary and it was well-known that he kept a diary) thought it had an effect for him.

As an aside do these books get vetted in the US?

[Siege]

I'm too headachy to laugh at anyone. 

That's the Miller Lite.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't touch the stuff.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't see how that changes the line being funny and perhaps showing a little lack of self-awareness.

It changes the line being funny because it removes the hypocrisy.

[Sheilbh]

Okay my sense of humour's clearly insufficiently Jesuitical

[Admiral Yi]

Okay my sense of humour's clearly insufficiently Jesuitical

No, you have too much vested interest in assassinating the source of the criticism.

[Sheilbh]

No, you have too much vested interest in assassinating the source of the criticism.

What?

[Siege]

You are an Obamazombie, he says.

[crazy canuck]

Okay my sense of humour's clearly insufficiently Jesuitical

No, you have too much vested interest in assassinating the source of the criticism.

If your argument requires that statement to be true, you may wish to reconsider making the argument.

[grumbler]

I don't see how that changes the line being funny and perhaps showing a little lack of self-awareness.

It changes the line being funny because it removes the hypocrisy.

Exactly.  The line is still funny, but it comes from Gates being tone deaf, not from him "spinning the meeting in a different direction for political purposes" (whatever that means).  I am not surprised that some tribal members can't see this because they are desperate to accuse Gates of political motivations (for their own partisan reasons), but I should have thought that you, Sheilbh, would see the difference between being tone-deaf and "spinning... for political purposes."