On Monday, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Sean Hannity on his Fox News program that President Obama was uncomfortable around military leaders – “I always had a feeling when he was around military leaders, he was suspicious of their motives.”
Moreover, Gates said that Obama seemed as though time spent with them was an “obligation rather than something he enjoyed.” On the other hand, Gates said that President George W. Bush “genuinely enjoyed being around senior military leaders.”
Gates told Hannity that from day one it was “pretty obvious” that President Obama was seeking re-election – “it didn’t require a political scientist to figure that out.” While Gates said that not every decision he made was determined by that political prism, “it was part of the discussion.” By contrast, Gates said that Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel were “driven by the domestic politics.” Gates went on to say that Obama “detested congress, including members of his own party, and didn’t want anything to do with them.”
Furthermore, in his new book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates himself excoriated Congress and said what he saw there “was truly ugly. Most of Congress is uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities like appropriations. They are micro-managers, critical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self and re-election before country.” Gates told Hannity that that was his experience with Congress and that he found these traits on both sides of the aisle.
“Whether it is supporting weapon systems or supporting expenditures that are no longer necessary or could be better used for other things, opposing or shutting down something to save money in their district or their state, or even in such things as the Afghanistan surge,” congressional members are always driven by what is the “political” repercussions, not driven by what is best for the county.