You might remember that election night in 2000 wasn’t all bad. Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri lost to Democrat Mel Carnahan, in spite of the fact that Carnahan had recently perished in a plane crash. It was a momentary good feeling that Bush quickly quashed by appointing Ashcroft as his Attorney General. In retrospect, this finger-in-the-eye was a precursor of how Bush would govern during the next eight years. If given an opportunity to stick it to the Democrats, more often than not, Bush took it.
Barack Obama doesn’t have the same vindictive streak. Obama is more inclined to forgive his opponents and offer them an olive branch than he is to deliberately alienate and marginalize them. It can be a bit frustrating for a partisan. We’ve watched Obama reach out to Colin Powell and Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, when he might have used them as a negative example. But, Obama has finally delivered a finger-in-the-eye moment to the Bush administration. The Washington Post reports that Obama will announce the appointment of Retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as his nominee to head the Department of Veterans Affairs tomorrow afternoon.
Shinseki, a 38-year veteran, is best known for his four years as Army chief of staff, and in particular his response to congressional questioning in February 2003 about troop levels necessary to protect a presumed military victory in Iraq.
Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” could be necessary, an assessment that was at odds with the announced determination of Pentagon leaders.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reacted by telling reporters that Shinseki’s estimate “will prove to be high,” and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz called the assessment “way off the mark.”
Three years later, Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command and the chief architect of U.S. military strategy in Iraq, told the same Senate committee, “General Shinseki was right.”
Of course, Shinseki was rewarded for his candor and prescience by being forced into retirement shortly after the fall of Baghdad. In selecting him as the Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, Obama is providing a constant reminder to all veterans that the Bush administration was wrong about Iraq, while the incoming president was right.
It’s a small measure of revenge, but it feels good. Shinseki is the first Asian-American to rise to the level of a four-star general.
