Americans would do well to remember that, even when making national-security decisions, presidents are often self-interested actors influenced by political calculations in addition to the course that they regard as best. It is dangerous to treat them as if they wouldn't ever act from less noble motives. Gates adds, "I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country."

It matters that many members of Congress are selfish and unprincipled! A closer eye must be kept on the body than if it was filled by paragons of selfless service to country.

Perhaps a subset of the actual, depraved Congress can't be trusted to carry out the will of the people in secret sessions purporting to provide adequate oversight of mass spying. The degree of trust national-security-state enthusiasts want citizens to vest in the federal government seems absurd when you consider the questionable character and competence of many of the people who are charged with oversight.

* * *

The most extraordinary parts of the excerpt come towards the end, when a former secretary of defense worries aloud that too many American elites are war mongers. That isn't the word that he uses. He calls them "fire-breathers." His warning:

Wars are a lot easier to get into than out of. Those who ask about exit strategies or question what will happen if assumptions prove wrong are rarely welcome at the conference table when the fire-breathers are demanding that we strike—as they did when advocating invading Iraq, intervening in Libya and Syria, or bombing Iran's nuclear sites. But in recent decades, presidents confronted with tough problems abroad have too often been too quick to reach for a gun. Our foreign and national security policy has become too militarized, the use of force too easy for presidents. Today, too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort. On the left, we hear about the "responsibility to protect" civilians to justify military intervention in Libya, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to strike Syria or Iran is deemed an abdication of U.S. leadership. And so the rest of the world sees the U.S. as a militaristic country quick to launch planes, cruise missiles and drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces.

Again, a former secretary of defense just said that the rest of the world sees us as a militaristic country, and that we should resort to force less often than we do now. Focusing on his criticism of Obama leads the public away from a lot that is more noteworthy.