In a recent attempt to paint Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a puppet for a president who “would eliminate the Marine Corps,” radio host Michael Savage used all manner of deceptive editing and omission to make his case. Savage attacked Gates, calling him a “Stepford wife” and a “traitor,” and repeatedly edited out relevant comments by the defense chief that directly refute Savage's misrepresentations.

In his full comments (available on video here), Gates made clear that he sees the Marine Corps as a crucial asset to our national defense in current conflicts and in the future.

On his August 13 radio show, Savage aired the following comments from Gates' August 12 speech to the Marines' Memorial Association in San Francisco:

The Pacific campaign of World War II was the only period of history when the exclusive focus of the Marine Corps was on amphibious assault. Yet fundamentally, the Marines do not want to be, nor does America need, another land army. Nor do they want to be, nor does America need, a “U.S. Navy police force,” as President Truman once quipped.

Savage then called Gates “traitor, traitor, traitor” and said that “there is a reason that the liberal elites hate the U.S. Marines.” But in Gates' very next comments, which Savage did not air, Gates called the Marines' unique ability for force projection and sustainment “a capability that America has needed this past decade, and will require in the future.”

Savage returned to the subject later, saying that Gates and Obama “want to destroy the Marine Corps” and airing the following comments from Gates' speech to support his claim:

Looking ahead, I do think it is proper to ask whether large-scale amphibious assault landings along the lines of Inchon are feasible. I've therefore asked Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and the Marine Corps leadership to conduct a thorough Force Structure Review, to determine what an “expeditionary-force-in-readiness” should look like in the 21st century.

Savage edited out the sentence that Gates spoke between those two -- in which he explained why such landings might not be feasible: “New anti-ship missiles with long range and high accuracy may make it necessary to debark from ships 25, 40 or 60 or more miles at sea.”

Later, Savage aired comments that, he claimed, revealed an effort to dismantle the branch:

A line I invoke time and again is that experience is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Four times in the past century the United States has come to the end of a war, concluded that the nature of man and the world had changed for the better, and turned inward, unilaterally disarming and dismantling institutions important to our national security -- in the process, giving ourselves a “peace” dividend.

Savage then said, “This garbage was written by some pacifist lunatic that he's mouthing like a marionette,” and ridiculed Gates for suggesting that the United States had achieved a peace dividend and should, therefore, dismantle the Marine Corps. But Gates' very next comments -- comments that Savage did not play -- advocate for sustaining military and intelligence capability during peacetime:

A line I invoke time and again is that experience is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Four times in the past century the United States has come to the end of a war, concluded that the nature of man and the world had changed for the better, and turned inward, unilaterally disarming and dismantling institutions important to our national security -- in the process, giving ourselves a “peace” dividend. Four times we chose to forget history. Four times we have had to rebuild and rearm, at huge cost in blood and treasure. After September 11th, the United States re-armed and again strengthened our intelligence capabilities. It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future -- it will be critically important not to make the same mistake a fifth time.

Savage also suggested that Obama would dissolve the Marines because they are the only branch of service that could and would resist the creation of a private Obama army. (Savage has pushed that particular conspiracy theory before.) Talking to a caller, Savage said that “if there were a Marine Corps, they would never do it. You follow where I'm going here? The Army is too muddled in order to stand up to a private army -- the creation of a private army. The Army has no cohesion, let me put it to you that way. Let me define it a little better. The Army has no true cohesion as an organization. The Marine Corps has tremendous group cohesion, tremendous group cohesion. And may I add, it's predominantly white males. May I say that again, in case you missed the point, Robert? May I say that once again? The Marine Corps is the real deal, it's the real McCoy.”

To sum up his invented controversy, Savage said, "[W]e're having this discussion because they're talking about it, and we have to say no. ... Don't touch our Marine Corps. We all love the Marine Corps." Given honest treatment, Gates' comments are not an attack on the Marine Corps. Instead, they celebrate the traditions, agility, and aptitude for adaptation that uniquely qualify the Marines to face current and future threats, the very talents that make them “the real McCoy.”