President-elect Obama's expected selection of Robert Gates as his defense secretary and retired Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser is raising eyebrows among liberals. More than a month before he takes the oath of office, President-elect Barack Obama already is testing the loyalty of his liberal base.
On Monday, he is expected to announce his national security team, which will include Robert Gates as his defense secretary, a carry-over from the Bush administration, and retired Gen. Jim Jones, who supported John McCain for president, as his national security adviser.
Liberal blogger Chris Bowers of The Open Left says the message sent by the selection of Gates undermines Democrats.
"The message would be clear," he writes in his blog. "Even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military."
Obama's outspoken opposition to the Iraq war before he became a U.S. senator was one of the reasons he was embraced early in the presidential race by the anti-war faction of the Democratic Party's base, so his apparent decision to keep a Bush adviser as defense secretary for at least a year has raised some eyebrows within that faction.
Bowers, a member of the Pennsylvania state Democratic committee, argues that Gates provided support and cover for practices from waterboarding to the use of psychotropic drugs on terror detainees. The blogger isn't as negative toward Jones but still called it "very disappointing."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/11/29/liberals-furious-obama-keeping-gates/ 
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