When President Obama chose to retain Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as a carryover from the Bush Administration, there were many raised eyebrows, including mine.
Now that we have had a chance to see the two men interact and work together, it has to be said that the Gates retention seems like a smart move politically and diplomatically. Gates, always a person who has kept his persona in the background, has had a positive impact on Obama defense policy. If Gates had been Defense Secretary under Bush from the beginning, instead of the disastrous Donald Rumsfeld, he might have been a good influence on that President and prevented the worst policy influences of Vice President Dick Cheney.
It will be interesting one day in the distant future to find out the full interactions when Gates worked under Bush and his involvement now with Obama, who Gates has positively compared with Bush as being more "analytical". Gates is expected to stay for at least the first two years of the Obama Presidency, and at this point, he can be seen as playing a major role in the promotion of change in defense and foreign policy.