Quote of the Day: on Robert Gates

During Hugh Hewitt's interview yesterday with Victor Davis Hanson, Hewitt asked Hanson if, considering the new congressional makeup, the president had the ability to continue fighting the war. Hanson answered:

I think he does, but let's be candid, Hugh. The problem right now isn't...it may be the left wing Congress, but he's got another problem, and that is he's bringing in Robert Gates, and he's bringing in the Baker realism, and that doesn't have a good record. That's the people who said don't talk to Yeltsin. Let's stick with Gorbachev. Let's not go to Baghdad. Let the Shia and Kurds die. Let's arm the Islamisists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and then leave. It's not a good record. It's short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality. And it's not in the interest of the United States to do that, to cut a deal with these countries.

I don't know enough about Robert Gates to make a judgment on Hanson's assessment, but I thought his comment about "short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality" was
interesting considering that seems to be the left's modus operandi in all things war-related.