ROBERT GATES IS A BAD CHOICE FOR DEFENSE SECRETARY

Caroline Glick points out that Robert Gates, Dubya's choice for defense secretary, is a bad choice:

Many downplay the significance of the US Congressional elections. It is the six-year slump, they say. But the truth is nonetheless glaring. By all accounts, Tuesday the George W. Bush era came to a close. The consequences of this turn of events on Israel will be dramatic. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that anyone has explained them to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of his scheduled visit to the White House next week.

Across the political spectrum in Washington today there is a sense that after years of wavering, in the wake of the Democratic victory in Tuesday's Congressional elections, President Bush transferred control over American foreign policy to his father's anti-war advisors.

The President's announcement of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's "resignation" Wednesday signaled the transfer of control over the war against radical Islam from Bush's team to Bush pere's team. Robert Gates, Bush's nominee to replace Rumsfeld, served as his father's deputy national security adviser and CIA director. Gates, who will arrive at the Pentagon from his present position as President of Texas A&M University where Bush I's presidential library is located, is closely associated with former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and former secretary of state James Baker. He is a member in good standing of the Arabist wing of the Republican Party which dominated the President's father's administration.

Worth reading in full. The conservative movement would be advised to oppose Gates' nomination, since he could be damaging to the war on terror, and set back the battle by a number of years.

On some local news here in Israel, MK Effie Eitam, a member of the National Union/NRP, is calling for a union between his party and the Likud:

MK Effie Eitam is calling for a merger of sorts between the Likud and the National Union/National Religious Party, with the goal of toppling the Olmert government.

Speaking at a Likud gathering in a Tel Aviv hotel Thursday night, MK Eitam bemoaned the fact that "there is currently no opposition." He called upon the Likud members to agree to unite in one large opposition party - or at least to work together.

"Now that Avigdor Lieberman has left the right-wing camp and joined the government," Eitam told Arutz-7's Yedidya HaCohen, "we must unite all the forces to topple the Olmert government. Just today, Olmert said that Abu Mazen doesn't realize how far he [Olmert] is willing to go politically. Therefore, in light of the challenges that face us, and after the war in Lebanon, the most important thing to do now is to cooperate."

With this news, I certainly hope that Eitam is sorry for any damage he led to during the last elections. He was needlessly inciting against the Likud, and he owes them - and much of the public - a sincere apology. And for someone who argues that there's no opposition, well, it should be noted that even he's guilty in his own way of that, and now he'd be well advised to start proving that he can be a true opposition voice himself.