Robert Gates Starts To Speak His Mind

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates greets President Barack Obama upon his arrival at the Pentagon for the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute to honor Gates, June 30, 2011. DOD photo by Cherie Cullen

Gates Starts To Say What He Really Thinks -- Washington Post

Add former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to the list of retired top officials who see the current American political scene as dysfunctional and dangerous.

“As a result of several long-building, polarizing trends in American politics and culture, we have lost the ability to execute even the basic functions of government, much less solve the most difficult and divisive problems facing the country,” Gates said last week at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia where he received that group’s Liberty Medal.

He cited two causes worth considering.

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My Comment: So Robert Gates looks .... longingly to decades past when three television networks and a handful of major newspapers dominated national coverage and “to a considerable degree, filtered extreme or vitriolic points of view.”

Sighhh .... I do not miss those times, nor the media coverage from the former Soviet Union when there was a monopoly there (actually there still is, but not as bad as during the Soviet times when I was there). As to view that the current American political scene is dysfunctional and dangerous .... yes it is .... but that is why we have elections .... government dysfunction and gridlock are ultimately solve by people voting freely and unencumbered by what the political class(es) may think.