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Robert Gates memoir: Top 5 bombshells

Early leaks of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ highly anticipated memoir have yielded a slew of insider tidbits about the personalities and behind-the-scenes struggles of Presidents Bush and Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other top officials as they fought wars on two fronts.

Here are his top five revelations.

3. Impatience with posturing pols

  • By Anna Mulrine Staff writer

Gates grew so disgusted with the posturing of lawmakers that he almost considered walking out of a congressional hearing – on more than one occasion.

Gates lambasts the “consistently adversarial, even inquisition-like treatment of executive-branch officials by too many members of Congress across the political spectrum.”

Gates also decries the – surprise – “single-minded parochial self-interest of so many members of Congress.”

The result, he says, was a “kangaroo-court environment in hearings, especially when the television cameras were present.”

Gates reserves special ire for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, describing the members as particularly “rude, nasty, and stupid.”

But he was no fan of the Senate, either. “I would listen with growing outrage as hypocritical and obtuse American senators made all these demands of Iraqi legislators and yet themselves could not even pass budgets.”

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Mark Sappenfield
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