Aggie President Wants to Be SECDEF

Aggie President Dr. Robert Gates has accepted President Bush's nomination for Secretary of Defense in the wake of former Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation. Rumsfeld announced his resignation on Wednesday in the wake of the large Republican losses in Tuesday's midterm election.

Gates is no stranger to the Intelligence and Defense arenas or politics. He began his career in 1966 as a CIA analyst and moved up from there eventually serving as the Director of Central Intelligence under President G. H. W. Bush. After retiring from the CIA in 1993, Dr. Gates returned to academics and ascended to the presidency of Texas A&M University in 2002.

Gates' open letter to the "Aggie Family" outlines his rationale for departure and the resulting outlook for A&M. Two years ago he declined to return to D.C. to become Director of National Intelligence since he had just begun his tenure in College Station, but "much has happened [at A&M] and around the world since then." On the A&M front, he is confident that the current leadership team can continue making strides in the right direction, such as the progress toward key initiatives like new facilities construction, increasing the diversity of the university populous and fund raising.

Unfortunately he offers no insight into a proposed strategy for the War on Terror in his letter. However, Dr. Gates is a member of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, which leads Houstonist to believe that some sort of negotiations may be forthcoming. The only certainty is the Senate confirmation hearings will heat up things inside the Beltway.
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Photo: flickr user eschipul.