ARTICLE: Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky?, By AUGUST COLE and YOCHI J. DREAZEN, Wall Street Journal, OCTOBER 30, 2008

Excellent little piece from Cole and Dreazen, who, with Jaffe's book-related absence, are clearly the duo-cream of the crop on defense at WSJ (Jaffe makes it a trio), so having them together in a single piece is a real treat. The kicker is their end-of-article analysis that says, You give Gates one more year in position and this Leviathan-v-SysAdmin fight could well be settled in the favor of the SysAdmin. To me, that's the #1 reason to argue and argue vehemently that Obama keep Gates on as a transitional legacy figure during two wars. It's sort of a gutsy argument for two industry journalists to make openly, and I was surprised to see it out there in the open. I've made arguments just short of that (I don't think I've ever said "keep him" for explicitly that reason, although I've been open in the reason for my praise of Gates), so I really tip my hat to both of them for making that argument openly in print. Pretty damn cool, actually. (Thanks: Dean Wakeham)