In the comments to a post yesterday, commenter David posted a link to a piece by Scott Horton in Harpers explaining the old-school genius of Robert Gates, the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, the one guy Obama has asked not to go anywhere. (According to the New York Times, this has never happened before—a Secretary of Defense being carried over from a president of a different party.) If Gates existed only in your mind as a not-as-incompetent-as-others-have-been Bush appointee—if, honestly, you hadn't taken much interest in Gates until you learned that Obama liked him—well, Horton's piece is brief and rich with information and context.

In my mind, Gates has proven himself as the most successful cabinet appointee in the eight years of the Bush presidency. He may well be one of the very best secretaries of defense, just as Rumsfeld has locked in his title as the worst since the office was founded.

Rumsfeld bashing is an old, easy sport, but it is still staggering, years later, what an asshole he was.

One of the great tragedies of the Rumsfeld era was an extraordinary degree of crass partisan politicization that went on, driven by the highly ideological coterie of neoconservatives who accompanied Rumsfeld into the Office of Secretary of Defense. For example, they would repeatedly denigrate senior officers of the joint staff with the comment that they were “Clinton generals” because they had risen up the ranks during the eight years of the Clinton administration—disregarding the fact that in the American military, officers rise through a rigorous peer review process.

It's not just the contrast to Rumsfeld that makes Gates great. Among other virtues:

Whereas Rumsfeld and his team marked a huge step backwards, Gates strove to resurrect the Pentagon’s old culture of professionalism. He insisted that his staff take a fresh look at things and provide answers and recommendations that suited the nation’s defense needs—whether they corresponded to the outline provided by Neocon thinktanks or not. He also adopted a new policy of candor and honesty in public speaking and in his remarks to Congress—resisting the temptation to which Rumsfeld regularly succumbed to tailor his remarks to the current themes of Republican politics, resulting in Orwellian rhetoric. Gates’s speeches are a study in contrast—rooted in broadly-shared values that underlie the defense establishment and sometimes openly questioning some of the excesses of his predecessor. Gates’s speeches reflect a strong and honorable view that the exercise of the nation’s war-making power must be kept above the fray of partisan politics, and that those who are deployed in the nation’s defense must understand they are acting on behalf of their country as a whole and not a political party.

Amen. There's more. Thanks, Mr. Horton. (And also, nice glasses.)