Standing tall isn’t easy for everybody.

Conservatives seem buoyed by the new Gates tell-all book. I’m not.

I’m astounded by various claims that it’s unusual for a former administration official to publish such a book while his erstwhile boss is still in office. It happened multiple times in the Bush administration. But that doesn’t make it less scurrilous.

Personally, I think Gates has just proven himself a coward and a sneak. If he believed the president didn’t believe in his own war strategy and that his Afghanistan policies and public pronouncements were strictly designed to secure reelection, he should have resigned on principle, with specification, when it could have made a difference in said reelection campaign.

What is it now? A stab in the back and a further undermining of the confidence any president can have in the people who serve at the pleasure of the president. All public officials are now just best selling writers in waiting, storing up shocking anecdotes when they should be serving the people of the United States.

Nothing his book says is any secret to people who were observing the administration’s behavior. It was obvious to many way outside the beltway that Obama’s only incentive was ending America’s military engagements, regardless of the cost to national security and our troops. But never mind what Obama didn’t believe in. The time to have made an issue of it was when Gates was following orders he didn’t believe in.

The moment is forever lost. Now he’s just a small man, literally and figuratively, who thinks his personal resentments are a ticket to the redemption of his lost integrity and, oh yes, a big payday.

Color me unimpressed. The title says it all. Duty. Really? I no longer think he knows the meaning of the word.