Search Results: 5 documents found

George Wilson's column | Why rush the F-35 into production?
ASK THIS | January 23, 2010
Ask Defense Secretary Gates: What is the threat that justifies spending $298.8 billion on 2,456 F-35s, or $122 million each, counting research and development costs?

| Will Obama veto Pentagon pork, or enable it?
COMMENTARY | September 15, 2009
Veto threats haven’t fazed the Congressional military appropriations slatherers, and until now the president and Defense Secretary Gates have been giving up early and often.

Hearing on Dec. 5 | Is Gates fit to serve? Are the senators?
ASK THIS | November 30, 2006
The Defense Department is possibly the worst managed agency in government, unable to even begin accounting for what it does with its $500 billion annual budget. While Iraq is the military’s most pressing and painful issue, the Senate Armed Services Committee may learn more about Robert Gates’s qualifications to be Secretary of Defense by asking basic bread and butter questions. (Last of three parts)

| Don’t just ask Gates questions; dig deep
ASK THIS | November 29, 2006
In the rare event that a senator asks a real question at a presidential nominee’s confirmation hearing, it is often read off or summarized from a staff memo. The senator most often will get a non-answer and then move on to another scripted question. Here’s how to break that pattern. (Second of three parts)

Form over substance | Any questions for Gates? (Part 1)
ASK THIS | November 27, 2006
The issue is not what questions Senators might ask in confirmation hearings with Secretary of Defense designate Robert M. Gates but whether they will ask any real questions at all. If past is prologue, there will be few questions posed, and those that are asked will be both pro forma and unanswered.