Reading this profile of Robert Gates, you'd get the impression he's some sort of independent actor within the war debate -- a quiet, thoughtful man who will, at some point, render an honest judgment that George W. Bush and the Democratic Congress will have to react to. You would not get the impression that this is but one more functionary who serves at the pleasure of the president, who won't publicly speak his mind if his conclusions conflict with the administration's favored path forward, and who, like Colin Powell and the Iraq Study Group before him, can be easily ignored in private.
The media's enduring tendency to try and create new heroes and pivot points for the war is, at this point, playing a genuinely obfuscatory role. George W. Bush has not picked cabinet officials and commanders who will cross him before Congress. This war, and its continuation, remain his initiative, and the media has to cease pretending that it's a more open and fluid process than it has ever been shown to be.
