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...latest dose of reality from Elmendorf's CBO: a forecast that the federal deficit will reach $1.35 trillion this year - $4,400 for every American. All that red ink means the overall debt will rise to $8.8 trillion by the end of 2010, or about 60% of gross domestic product - the highest level of public debt since 1952. "There's a fundamental disconnect between the level of benefits that people want the government to provide, particularly for older Americans, and the amount of resources that people want to send to Washington to pay for those benefits," Elmendorf says. "To make...
Gates is a man of old-school habits: a Grey Goose at the end of the day and preferably steak or bacon cheeseburgers for lunch and dinner. He doesn't use a cell phone. He asked me during our interview if there was tape in my digital recorder. Gates keeps a box filled with index cards of quotes and anecdotes and one-liners he's collected over the years. His favorite comedians are both dead - George Carlin and W.C. Fields. Their sensibilities suit Gates' own - taking down institutions, puncturing pomp. He's even adopted some of their style. He loves...
...that Russian cockpit, however, Gates looked less like the pilot of the world's most powerful military machine and more like a man in a bubble. Does he worry that he'll end up like the Soviet generals he once fought against, steering a strategy that ends in defeat...
...well as being a writer, Gates is the consummate technocrat, a comforting presence who puts a face on the predictability of uncertainty. His Wichita monotone and old-fashioned speeches about service and duty exude a sense of calm and control - just what the Pentagon needed at the end of 2006 as an antidote to Rumsfeld. Gates had left government in 1992 after the elder Bush's defeat and became president of Texas A&M before being summoned back to Washington by George W. Bush. At Gates' confirmation hearings, Democratic Senator Carl Levin asked whether the U.S. was winning...
...asked Gates recently about that night. He told me it was not a singular event. "At the end of the West Point graduation, I told them I consider every one of them as if they were my own sons and daughters. I feel a very personal sense of responsibility for each and every one of them," he said. "And one of the reasons I've stayed on is that I worry that whoever comes next won't care as deeply, won't do the MRAPs, isn't willing to spend $30 billion to save our kids' lives and limbs...