An Open Letter to Carl Levin: No Free Pass to Gates (Ray McGovern)

[laststeamtrain]

An Open Letter to Carl Levin: No Free Pass to Gates
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Saturday 11 November 2006

Dear Senator Levin:

The humiliation you felt was palpable when, as the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, you were unceremoniously diddled by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, chief architects of the fiasco in Iraq. They all but thumbed their noses at you, and you often complained about their "lack of candor." In two short months, you will chair Armed Services and will no longer have to tolerate such behavior. Indeed, you can start practicing now by not letting the nomination of Robert Gates be a "slam dunk."

One need not be politically astute to see that the White House is again using its cat's paw Senator, patrician gentleman from Virginia John Warner, who now chairs the committee, to force through the nomination of Gates this year, while the lame-duck Republicans still hold the majority. That, of course, is par for the course. What is far more disturbing is press reporting that you intend to acquiesce in that maneuver. You don't have to do that any more.

I am having a hard time believing that you would give Gates a pass, since I have so much admired your courage in the past. But I fear that the many recent years in minority exile may have dulled your edge and that you have gotten too used to unsavory compromises. I have in mind the deal you worked out with South Carolina Republican senator Lindsay Graham curtailing some of the rights of "detainees." Not to mention your sudden cave-in, in the aftermath of 9/11, on funding for the National Missile Defense program, which you earlier recognized as obscenely expensive, of unproven reliability, and of dubious utility given the changing nature of the threats to our security.

A lot is riding on whether you step up to the plate on the Gates nomination. Your decision will be one of the earliest tangible signs of whether the November 7 election has injected some spine into Democrats - whether they still have it in them to act like winners. You have had a running dispute with the Bush administration over the way its representatives have misrepresented so much on Iraq in testimony before your committee. If you bow to Republican pressure to allow the Gates nomination to sail through without a thorough investigation of his record, you will be giving a fresh nihil obstat to the practice of no-fault dissembling before Congress.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111106A.shtml

[Demeter]

1. He's An Old Man--I don't Have Much Hope In His Staying Power.

Levin will be looking for a legacy this time around. I just don't think he's up for any kind of a fight anymore.

[omega minimo]

2. .

[Demeter]

3. They Aren't Waiting For January To Install Gates

His confirmation hearings begin today. The committee will vote him out, the Bushbots will confirm him, and we'll be stuck until catastrophe or President Pelosi puts his ass in orbit.