[Vision2020] Something Nice About a Government Official

[Tom Hansen]

>From Bob Schieffer's closing commentary on toady's (March 25, 2007) "Face
the Nation" -

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Something Nice About a Government Official
By Bob Schieffer

At the risk of saying something nice about a high-ranking government
official, may I note what's been going on lately at the Pentagon? 

When I asked the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, on Face the Nation,
how he found out about the awful treatment that some of our wounded veterans
were getting, he told me he read it in The Washington Post and was so
shocked he called the reporters and thanked them. Then he called in the
high-ranking officials responsible and fired them. 

It also turns out he has disbanded some of those bogus
intelligence-gathering operations created by his predecessor. He has shut
down a government spin office. 

He has argued behind the scenes to close down Guantanamo prison because its
notoriety is undermining American credibility. 

And get this: When Congress asked what he wanted to do with former Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld's plan to build a $100 million courthouse to hold trials
at Guantanamo, he said, "That is ridiculous." And then he canceled the
program. 

He's also getting rave reviews from Congress because, as one Democratic
senator told me, "He doesn't always agree with me, but he actually seems to
listen." 

Now, here's my question: I wonder if he could find time to run by the
Justice Department some afternoon? Congress and the White House are butting
heads over who can say what about it, but isn't all that just a waste of
time? Don't we already know about all we need to know about this mess? 

Either nobody was running the store, or if somebody was, they were putting
politics ahead of the law and should be fired. Gates seems to know how to
handle that sort of thing. I think I'd send him over there.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men." 

- Thomas Paine (English Writer, 1737-1809)

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