Now, why doesn’t this surprise me?
(Former Marine four star General James L.) Jones, reserved and ramrod straight, with a steady, blue-eyed stare, is the unquestioned odd man out at the White House in both background and personality. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, is known as hyperactive and hyperbolic. On the National Security Council (NSC), chief of staff Mark Lippert and strategic communications director Denis McDonough are intense, stay-late-at-the-office foreign policy experts whose ties to Obama are long and deep. Deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon has an extensive history with the Democratic Party and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton…
“But there is a generational thing here. There is a process thing here. I’m used to staffs, and I’m used to a certain order. I’m used to people having certain roles. And so there’s a very natural adjustment period.”
He probably reads things before he signs them, too.
“He’s not very visible,” said I.M. Destler, co-author of a recent book on national security advisers. “I’m a skeptic on whether Jones has the sort of flexibility and ability” required by Obama, Destler said.
Great. The National Security Adviser is “not very visible, flexible or able” in the Obama White House.
What’s the worst that could possibly happen?
“What, me worry?” Alfred E. Neumann
time indeed..
The whole subject outlined in the linked article as written reminds me of one of my favorite Gary Larson “Far-Side” cartoons which depicts a sky-diving school and a gator farm side by side, with hungry gators casting an expectant eye at a line of slack-jawed, clueless dufusses lined up to board the ac–all with the sky-diving tgt outlined in an adj. open field directly behind the mid-point of the two facilities. The title? “Trouble Brewing.” LOL! Just transfer that title to the current NSC-White House set-up.
With what he’s done to the intelligence community, see if we don’t get hit in the next couple of months. Then watch the MSM try and cover his ass for several thousand dead.
I, for one (Won?), am NOT impressed.
Buckle-up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Cheers!
ChrisP
Hey, Lex — boy, was I disappointed. I kept looking for mention of the NSA director, LTG Keith Alexander. And all I find is stuff about the NSC director, retired Gen Jim Jones.
I love you like a brother…
If you read the whole article it is very complimentary to Gen Jones.
Jones said he is “not used to being in the center of these things. . . . But if I’m not living up to other people’s views of what the national security adviser should look like he’s doing . . . like my hair is on fire all the time,” so be it. “I did that in my life, a couple of generations ago, I was a gung ho major, and a gung-ho lieutenant colonel, and I sacrificed my family life for my career.”
If he can reform the NSC’s structure and process, he said, “then everybody can go home and have dinner with their families. Because they’ll have enough depth and robustness so that we can tee up issues — not constantly in a crisis mode.”
I’m a big fan of Gen. Jones – he did a superb job as Commandant, as well as handling the SACEUR job with aplomb (a friend of mine was his senior aide, and was very complementary). If anyone can survive the climate in an Obama White House, it’d be Jones. He’s a survivor.
Oh, and if anyone knows how I can get one of his NSA coins, that’d be great. I’ve been lucky enough to have received both his CMC & SACEUR coins, so it’d be pretty cool to complete the trifecta!
From my lowly perspective, NSC is doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing, and a very good job at it.
Now if someone can light a fire under the a** of a certain rookie COCOM, we can get something done.