A Gate to Paradise? Why is any nomination George Bush offers up is suspect by me? Why was I not fawning over Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense? Anyone, as Maureen Dowd, says including an axe murderer, would have looked good next to incompetent Rumsfeld. Still, I am not at first THAT impressed. I think his nomination like the Iraq Study Group is smoke and mirrors to make "W" LOOK as if he is doing something but in reality he will not. What about Iran Contra? No one asked Gates about that illegality he was a part of? What's so great about him that the Dems fawned and fell over backward for him? He is white bread vanilla ... just the type the Bush crowed salivates over and tries to protect their fortune with. It's back to 1950's future. Maybe the guy is smart and maybe he does have a resume -- well a Republican one. He's from Texas A&M? Doesn't that school have something to do with agriculture? Are they known for their foreign policy expertise? Why not pick someone with experience from Harvard, Yale or Princeton ... or BU? You know Yale, our cerebrally challenged president's alma mater. I'll bet that fact inflates Yale's admission applications. I digress. This is a cynical entry. I can't help it. The decision to invade Iraq was so utterly lied about and so wrong and so stupid and SO lost now I do not see how even God himself could extricate that mad crowd in Iraq which we put there. Malaki I believe will fall. Then what? TOTAL and I mean TOTAL civil war will ensue. Why prolong this misery? Declare victory and leave. Can't we say instead of creating democracy that we just wanted to topple Saddam? Well, we did that, so let's leave before 3,000 more troops have to pay with their lives. I can take defeat. I have many times. Like Bush's father, I am not afraid to cry especially if the rationale for crying would save lives.