Judging by his appearance on the talk shows it appears that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates must have a twin brother, or perhaps a clone. And evidently they are not talking to each other. 

Consider what Gates said on Meet The Press:

GATES: Well, there’s no question that it’s disappointing that the Sunnis have left the government. Some of the ministers, such as the minister of defense, who is a Sunni, have remained in place. But their inability to reconcile among themselves at this national level and to get some of this legislation passed, clearly, is disappointing, and therefore makes some of the positive developments outside of Baghdad or outside of the national political arena more interesting.

But nevertheless he left open the possibility that some troops could be withdrawn before the year is out: 

RUSSERT: Is there a possibility we could draw down troops by the end of this year?

GATES: It’s a possibility.

RUSSERT: A good possibility.

GATES: There is a possibility. 

And here is what Gates said on CNN’s Late Edition:

BLITZER: But realistically, that 160,000 troops — it was 130, you raised it by about 30,000 as part of this strategy, 160. When do you think you’ll be able to start drawing that number down?

GATES: Well, I think we’ll have to wait for the evaluation from Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus and their recommendation on that score before we’re in a position to say. 

BLITZER: So you’re not working under any assumptions right now? You’re just going to hold off making those decisions?

GATES: We’re doing contingency planning on a lot of different possibilities. We intend to be in a position to execute whatever decisions the president makes. 

Actually, just before that Gates also said this: 

GATES: One of the messages on my trip to the Middle East this last week was that we anticipate trying to work out with the Iraqi government an arrangement whereby there would be a residual presence of U.S. forces at some fraction of the current level that would be a stabilizing and supporting force in Iraq for some protracted period of time.. So, I think that that’s generally the view of almost anybody who is looking at this, that some kind of residual force for some period of time will be required beyond when we begin a drawdown.

So perhaps the Gates boys were triplets, not twins. Okay, perhaps Gates was thinking of the old Ralph Waldon Emerson quote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. But in fairness we can’t just focus Gates for not being on message however. Evidently there is also a disconnect between him and President Bush. Towards the end of Meet the Press Gates said this: 

RUSSERT: Before you go — if we had actionable intelligence about Osama bin Laden or high-level targets in Pakistan, and General Musharraf, President Musharraf did not act, would we act unilaterally?

GATES: Musharraf has been a very strong ally. The fact of the matter is, if we actionable intelligence that Osama was in Pakistan I think — my view is that President Musharraf would work with us to make sure that we could go after him.    

RUSSERT: But if he didn’t, would we act unilaterally? GATES: I think we would not act without telling Musharraf what we were planning to do.

And he was admirably on message with regard to the same point on CNN: 

BLITZER: What about Pakistan and this notion that if you, the Bush administration, the U.S. government, had actionable intelligence to go in to Pakistan and capture or kill Osama bin Laden or his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, you would do that? 

GATES: I think that our relationship with the Pakistanis is such that we would share that information with Musharraf, and he would be delighted to work with us in making that kind of an operation work.

BLITZER: Would he let the U.S. get the job done?  

GATES: I think he would work with us to get the job done.

But today President Bush President Bush said that with the right intelligence U.S. and Pakistan governments can take out al-Qaida leaders, and he wouldn’t say whether he would consult first with Pakistan before ordering U.S. forces to act on their own.

Gates’ remarks were a model of diplomatic discourse, as opposed those his boss, President Bush, and previous remarks by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, who said last week “If we had actionable intelligence about high-valued terrorist targets, and President Musharraf will not act, we will.”

Incidentally, although they criticized Obama’s remark, Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani declined in the Republican debate yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa, to rule out an incursion into remote tribal areas where Al Qaeda is holed up.

Hmm, George Bush, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani and Barack Obama all on the same page. Now that’s bipartisanship.