Charlie Rose desperately tried to find confirmation from former
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday's CBS This Morning on
whether President Obama is a good commander-in-chief: "You can answer this question as well as anyone I know....do you give President Obama high marks in the national security arena?" Gates exposed Rose's pro-Obama tactic when he laughingly replied, "If I don't, I'm sort of giving myself a flunking grade."
The veteran national security official did his best to nuance his
eventual answer, but still ended up giving his former boss the grade
that the anchor was looking for: "He [Obama] was as aggressive, if not
more so, in going after terrorists and al Qaeda. I think that the
relationship with China has been managed pretty well. So, yeah, I think they've done a pretty good job."
Rose fished for his compliment of President Obama midway through his
interview with his Gates. Earlier, the CBS journalist asked the former
secretary of defense about the bin Laden raid and the difficulty in
"finding a good answer" for dealing with Iran. Gates noted how he had
recommended a missile strike on the suspected bin Laden compound in
Pakistan, instead of a Navy SEAL raid: "My view was, you'll know [that
bin Laden was killed]. It may take a few months and it's not as dramatic and you won't get the headline that you will on a SEAL raid, but...if you think he's there, that's probably the least risky way to take him out."
After asking three questions on the issue of Iran, the anchor pulled
out his leading question. Even after Gates gave his "pretty good job"
answer, Rose followed up by asking the former Cabinet official to
compare his last two bosses:
ROSE: What's
the difference in the way President Obama acts in the counsels of
national security policy and the way President Bush acted?
GATES: Well, you just have to read about it in the book. (laughs)
ROSE: Well, I know, but give me a hint. I will- with great pleasure, I
will- and I look forward to having you to talk about the book when it
comes, but just give us a sense of how you see that.
GATES: I think President Obama goes out of his way to make sure he
hears from everybody. He'll not only go around the table in the
Situation Room; he'll go around the back bench to hear from the, sort
of, second and third-tier officials. President Bush welcomed debate and
discussion, but he didn't, sort of, point his finger at people and say,
what do you think?
ROSE: And what instincts did President Bush have, say, that President Obama didn't have?
GATES: I think- well, first of all, you have to put both of these
presidents in- when I knew them- in perspective. President Bush was in
the last two years of eight years as president. He was never going to
run for office again, and most of the big decisions had already been
made. I worked for President Obama in the very first two years of his
administration. Here's a president who knew from the beginning
that he was going to run for reelection, but he also had a lot to learn,
in terms of the national security arena. Frankly, I think he was an
incredibly fast learner. And his desire to get a broad range of views
was highly commendable.
It's interesting, to say the least, that Gates would point out Obama's
desire for reelection, especially in the context of his earlier
statement that a missile strike on the bin Laden compound would not be
"as dramatic and you won't get the headline that you will on a SEAL
raid."
The CBS anchor, along with his co-anchors Erica Hill and Gayle King,
discussed the pre-recorded interview with Gates after it ran. Rose
actually revealed more of his liberal sympathies during this part of the
segment:;
ROSE: You know, the other interesting thing is that, obviously, in
conversations like this, took place at William and Mary. This is a man
who's becoming the chancellor, which is a ceremonial job. George
Washington was the chancellor at William and Mary. Thomas Jefferson
graduated from William and Mary, and so did Jon Stewart. (Gayle King laughs)
ERICA HILL: A-ha!
ROSE: A scholar of comedy.
HILL: What a fine note to close on, Charlie Rose.
It is beyond bizarre to rank Stewart with the likes of those two Founding Fathers.