White House defends Biden against Gates criticism

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is bristling over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new memoir accusing President Barack Obama of showing too little enthusiasm for the U.S. war mission in Afghanistan and sharply criticizing Vice President Joe Biden's foreign policy instincts.

In a book set for release next week by the publishing house Knopf, Gates writes that Biden is "a man of integrity," but also a political figure who has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."

Gates, a Republican, also slammed the National Security Council under Obama's watch. The Republican cited what he called the "controlling nature" of the White House, writing that Obama's national-security team "took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level."

Such tell-all books are not new to Washington, and they're woven into the city's cultural fabric. In the inside-the-Beltway political culture, they burst into view, make a splash on TV, online and in the press and quickly fade. But in the case of the Gates book, the White House chose to speak out quickly and sharply.