DEMOCRATS VS THE MILITARY:

Gen. Jones and the Anonymous Long Knives (Sally Quinn, May 18, 2009, Washington Post)

The knives are out. The tom-toms are beating. And by Washington standards it's soon. Usually the trashing of the national security adviser takes longer.

In recent days articles have appeared in The Post and the New York Times questioning the abilities of retired four-star Gen. Jim Jones, the former commandant of the Marine Corps and former NATO commander. Of all the power games in Washington, this one probably has the highest stakes. This is dangerous to the players and to the country.

The national security adviser is the person who sees the president most often and has his ear. Each adviser has his or her own style. Jones is reserved, confident and low-key; this does not sit well with his detractors. Traditionally the job of the national security adviser is to synthesize information between the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. This person is meant to listen to all voices and then present them to the president along with his own advice. Success or failure depends on the adviser's relationship with the president. Period. National security adviser is the most coveted job in foreign policy, even more so than secretary of state, under the thinking that while the secretary is traveling the globe, being America's ambassador to the world and eating a lot of bad food at boring banquets, the adviser is in Washington making and overseeing policy.
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Today, the sniping is reportedly coming mostly from State Department officials and some staffers at the White House. Jones, not surprisingly, has a good relationship with the Pentagon. So who's out to get him?

The revealing thing is that the UR recognized he needed to fill that spot with a Republican military man rather than a Democrat diplomat. Of course the rest of the Administration wants his scalp.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 18, 2009 8:36 AM