You said, "In other words, Obama is preparing to redefine the "center" as supportive of withdrawal from Iraq, a major health care overhaul, real energy reform, etc....."

Exactly Greg, you've summed it up nicely. You are really on your game today.

From the get-go I have thought that was exactly what he meant by bipartisanship

Adding to the chorus, I've always thought one of the great opportunities created by Obama winning involved his ability to move the center to the left and, in doing so, build a new progressive era. Of course, one can also argue cause and effect -- the center was already moving to the left anyway. But Obama's ability to reframe our entire political discourse is key to cementing these changes.

Oh, Greg. You were doing so well. I was reading along, and nodding, and then I got to this sentence:

For instance, as Chris Bowers argues persuasively, keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates is inherently a bad idea, because it keeps the same leadership in charge of half the Federal budget and, worse, sends the message that Republicans are needed to manage national security.

Bowers' post is specious. He doesn't offer a single concrete point on which he differs from Gates. He doesn't enumerate the changes he'd like to see take place at the Pentagon. His case, such as it is, rests entirely on image and symbolism, not substance. He doesn't want Gates because he's afraid that it will signal Democrats can't handle defense. He doesn't want him because he's afraid that retaining him will undermine the case for change.

Fortunately, Obama appears not to have internalized the same insecurities. He's sufficiently strong and confident as a leader, and enjoys a broad enough mandate, that he doesn't need to choose a Democratic defense secretary just to send a symbolic message. If keeping Gates on for up to a year is the wisest course - and I've argued that it is - Obama is clearly prepared to do so. It's worth noting that even the article quoted by Bowers says that the reservations among transition advisors relate to Gates' subordinates, and not to Gates himself.

If there's a reason not to keep Gates on substantive policy grounds, I'm all ears. But to dismiss him on January 20 solely because he happens to be a Republican is precisely the sort of political decision that Obama campaigned against. It would represent the change that Chris Bowers would like to see - progressive triumphalism - and not the change Obama promised.

This is exactly the sort of strategy that made me enthusiastic about Obama. I started out as an Edwards guy, and was concerned that Obama's calls for an end to partisan battles meant that he would be compromising with the Republican leadership in the same way that had neutered Democrats for too long.

But when I read more, it became clear that he was not talking about traditional Washington "compromise" with Republican leaders. He was saying that Republicans, and particularly rank-and-file Republicans, were welcome to join us in doing the right things for the American people. And if they had good ideas to contribute about how to do that, they would be welcome, but doing the right thing was not going to be compromised just because it didn't fit their ideology, just to get them on board.

I'm still pretty hopeful that's what we're seeing.

I see some Republicans arguing Obama still isn't showing enough bi-partisanship because Gates isn't Republican enough. Go figure.

Damned if he does..you know the rest.

I'm agnostic about Gates. I don't have any illusions that Obama's "real" inclinations are actually all that different from Gates's, and he provides nice political cover for whatever blips occur during an Iraq withdrawal. On the other hand, if Obama is tempted to put off the withdrawal long enough to make the majority of the population that wants it restless, the optics of having Gates around then flip and become negative. (Of course that's also a way of saying that keeping Gates makes the potential penalty for reneging on the withdrawal higher for Obama, so I could look on that as a GOOD thing- an added incentive not to screw it up.)

Gates is actually registered as an Independent according to ABCNews.

Where were all these republican politicians and talking heads demanding that Bush appoint Democrats to his Cabinet? Where was the push for Bush to run a centrist/bipartisan Administration?

It's ludicrous. Tell them to piss off, all of them. So Bush and his cronies can run a hard right administration, but Obama and the Dems need to run a centrist one when he's got strong majorities in the House and Senate and bigger mandate than Bush ever had?

I want arrests and war crime tribunals. I'd sacrifice all Obama's political capital on seeing Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Yoo, Addington, Tenet, Gonzalez held accountable for the world to see.

You kind of always knew that for all the talk (nay, stern lectures) back in the primary season about "post-partisanship" and "turning a page" in American politics, a lot of folks were still going to be mighty disappointed to find out that bipartisanship doesn't just mean that the other party has to stop being so dog-gone disagreeable, or that meeting people halfway doesn't consist solely of your side staying put while the other side moves your way.