I won’t even go into what a disapointment this is. Unfuckingbelievable.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — By a vote of 95-2, the Senate approved President Bush’s defense secretary nominee Wednesday, a day after the nomination sailed through the Armed Services Committee.

Robert Gates, a former CIA director, will be sworn in December 18.

Two Republican senators — Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Jim Bunning of Kentucky — cast the only no votes.

“He’s the right guy at the right time,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.

During Wednesday’s debate on the nomination, it seemed Democrats had been successfully wooed by Gates.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he was “favorably impressed” by Gates’ candor and forthrightness.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who has been a vocal critic of Bush’s Iraq policy, added that he believes Gates will be “an independent thinker and give candid and frank advice to the president about a way forward in Iraq.”

However, Kennedy warned, the American people “are demanding a lot more than a change of faces at the Pentagon … They’re demanding — and they deserve — a comprehensive change in our policy.”

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