Why Would Obama Stick With Gates as Defense Secretary?

Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 4:03 PM on November 20, 2008.

Remember who the last Secretary of Defense was under a Democratic President? It was a Republican:

On December 5, 1996, President Clinton announced his selection of Cohen as secretary of defense. Cohen, a Republican about to retire from the United States Senate, was the "right person," Clinton said, to build on the achievements of William Perry, "to secure the bipartisan support America's armed forces must have and clearly deserve." In responding to his nomination, Cohen said that during his congressional career he had supported a nonpartisan national security policy and commended the president for appointing a Republican to his cabinet.

Who will be the next Secretary of Defense under a Democratic administration? Seems like a Republican appointee:

Barack Obama and Robert Gates are negotiating policy issues with a view toward Gates remaining Defense secretary, the Financial Times reports, a move that would make the Bush appointee a key member of a bipartisan cabinet that resembles Abraham Lincoln's "team of rivals."

Kind of remarkable that every time Democrats seek elite media and political credibility for having a "bi-partisan" cabinet, they turn to Republicans to manage the Pentagon. Kind of makes you think that Democrats believe Republicans are better at managing both national security, and what is by far the largest department of the federal government. There have been no Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1996, and only eight years of Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1968.

Managing the Pentagon involves a budget that will dwarf whatever the new Treasury Secretary receives from Congress. In fact, the Defense Department involves 52% of all net discretionary spending, making it about half of what the President oversees. (While the actual military budget is an even larger percentage of spending, I am just looking at the DoD in this case, since other departments oversee the rest of military expenditures.) Further, that doesn't even include supplemental bills for Iraq and Afghanistan, which Congress will be approving for the next two years and which do mainly fall under the purview of the Department of Defense. It also involves the semi-important debate over the use of contractors, and the largest energy expenditures within the federal government. You can't build a greener America without building a greener military.

And yet, just like in 1996, we are once again handing those responsibilities over to Republicans and Republican appointments even after we win huge, landslide victories. This is half of the federal government, and it is as though change is utterly impossible within it. But hey, at least Obama looks good for receiving bi-partisan credibility from The Village. Hopefully, Obama will accrue as much political capital from Republicans and media elites as Bill Clinton did during his second term for appointing a Republican Secretary of Defense. Also, I hope it works out as well as all of those Democrats Bush appointed to run the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, or Housing and Urban Development.

Tagged as: bush, democrats, republicans, clinton, obama, gates, department of defense