Great article in Time on Robert Gates...

Robert Gates: The Bureaucrat Unbound

I think if President Bush did one thing right in his 8 years, it may have been replacing Rumsfeld with Robert Gates. The more I read about Gates, the more I am impressed with his ability to wade above the politics and military-industrial complex to do right by our troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its good to see that Gates takes the fact that our fellow citizens are giving up months and years of their lives (and sometimes their actual lives) to fight these wars very seriously. Under Rumsfeld, I didn't get that same feeling. Not from his demeanor, and definitely not from how business was conducted at the Pentagon (not providing MRAPs, body armor, and other things the troops actually NEEDED). Hopefully the combination of the Obama administration's focus on diplomacy and a more effective and apolitical Secretary of Defense will help bring our two wars to a close and allow us to take a more honest and intelligent approach to conflicts in the future.