Free Republic

Mr. Donilon began as a young political operative for President Jimmy Carter and later was chief of staff for Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration. He has long operated in the area between politics and national security. He coached Mr. Obama on foreign policy for his debates in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Gen. James Jones is resigning as President Obama's national security adviser. Tom Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, will replace him, a senior administration official tells POLITICO. Jones's resignation will take effect in two weeks. Obama will make an announcement in the Rose Garden at 1 p.m. Friday

Bob Woodward's searing critique of the Democrats' war strategy comes as key advisers are leaving and voters lose patience with Barack Obama's promise to deliver 'hope and change'. Alex Spillius reports on an increasingly isolated President. When Barack Obama took office 20 months ago – and what a long 20 months it seems – there was a lot of talk about the great "Team of Rivals" he was appointing around him. Parallels were drawn with the cabinet of substantial talents and big personalities assembled by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the nation after the civil war. Now, in a new book,...

President Obama yesterday fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top US commander in Afghanistan, replac ing him with Gen. David Petraeus. Obama, as commander-in-chief, had the right both in law and in custom to do so -- and, given McChrystal's injudicious remarks to a Rolling Stone reporter, it's no surprise that he did just that. We wish the president had retained McChrystal -- a brilliant field commander who is highly regarded by many political leaders in the region. At the same time, Obama did well in selecting Petraeus to assume battlefield leadership in Afghanistan. Time and again, Petraeus has proved...

"Lighten up." That's what defenders of National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones are saying. Appearing before the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jones introduced his remarks with the following story: A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn't have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban ... begins to curse and yell. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, two miles down the...

Yid With Lid: He was giving the key note speech at a Washington Institute For Near East Policy and started it out with a "joke" that borders on anti-Semitic, teaching the crowd that Jews are just greedy merchants in the same vein as Shakespeare's Shylock... Editor's note: For Yid With Lid's full post on "The Joke" see the related link below. "• Yid With Lid: Jews are greedy merchants YouTube video 

National Security Adviser James L. Jones doesn't necessarily come across as the amusing guy at policy events. Rather, the veteran general is known for his measured and careful wording, and his somewhat monotonic delivery. Maybe that is why some were surprised when Jones decided to open his remarks at the 25-year anniversary gala of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with a joke. Not just any joke - a Jewish joke that some say was in poor taste. And here is how it goes: A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Schofield Barracks, Hawaii Schofield Barracks is a United States Army installation located in the City and County of Honolulu and in the Wahiawa District of the island of Oahu, Hawaii, United States. Schofield Barracks lies adjacent to the town of Wahiawā, separated from most of it by Lake Wilson (also known as Wahiawā Reservoir). Schofield Barracks is named after Lieutenant General John McAllister Schofield. He was sent to Hawaii in 1872 and recommended the establishment of a naval base at Pearl Harbor. Schofield Barracks occupies some 17,725 acres on Central Oahu....

Jones joins race in 8thBy: GARY WECKSELBLATT The Intelligencer February 14, 2010 03:34 AM Calling it "a historical moment," a black man from rural Arkansas raised as a sharecropper officially entered the 8th District congressional race for the Republican nomination Saturday. "This is Black History month," James Jones told a group of family and friends. "What better time to stand in front of you?" Describing himself as a "Tea Party guy," Jones, who fought in two wars with the Navy and also served in the Middle East, spoke out against government spending, deceitful politicians and the "killing" of the U.S....

<p>He's tanned, he's rested and he's back in love with the cameras!</p> <p>For the third day in a row since returning from his Christmas/New Year's vacation, Barack 'can't I just eat my waffles' Obama is appearing before the cameras to speak to the American people.</p>

THE US will launch a new effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border, US national security adviser James Jones says. Asked in an interview if the administration planned a fresh attempt to go after al-Qaeda's leader, Mr Jones said: "I think so."

J Street’s conference next week has become a Rorschach test of sorts. More and more members of Congress are dropping out, having discovered just who will be speaking — such as this “poet” who finds Gaza to be another fascistic ghetto, complete with numbers written “on the wrists of babies.” And then there is the 9-11 “truther.” So Sens. Schumer, Gillibrand, Lincoln, and Cochran have bugged out, as have a growing list of congressmen. But not the administration. The Obami are to be represented by National Security Adviser James Jones, who has no problem appearing on the same stage with...

Here is video of Obama's National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones avoiding every way possible saying that Gen. Stanley McChrystal will get the reinforcements he needs to do the job in Afghanistan. Jones repeatedly avoided questions by Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation yesterday, about whether McChrystal's request will be granted. Jones' attitude would seem to reveal that the White House is not inclined to listen to McChrystal, and Jones said the President will not just be presented with McChrystal's request, but with a "range of options." Jones seemed to downplay McChrystal's request as being just his view, rather than...

President Obama's National Security Adviser James L. Jones suggested Sunday that the public campaign being conducted by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan on behalf of his war strategy is complicating the internal White House review now underway, saying that "it is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command

The Talk Shows Sunday, August 9th, 2009 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): National Security Adviser James Jones; Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican; Maj. Gen. Carla Hawley-Bowland, commanding general of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the U.S. Army’s North Atlantic Regional Medical Command. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): National Security Adviser James Jones; Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York; Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J. FACE THE NATION (CBS): National Security Adviser James Jones; Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat; Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.THIS WEEK (ABC): Former national Democratic Party...

U.S. officials believe Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a CIA drone attack last week, President Obama’s national security adviser said Sunday. “We think so,” Gen. James Jones told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding, “We put it in the 90 percent category.” Government officials in Pakistan said Friday they were still waiting for results of DNA analysis to ensure that the man killed Wednesday in an unmanned aerial vehicle strike is indeed Mehsud. Taliban officials have denied the death of the man targeted at the home of Mehsud’s father-in-law. If Mehsud was killed, Jones said it’s an important...

Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, disclosure forms released by the White House showed on Friday. Summers was also paid $2.7 million in speaking fees by a range of organizations and companies, including several troubled Wall Street financial firms. The disclosure documents on Summers and other White House officials advising Obama on the global financial crisis covered 2008 and the first few months of this year. Summers became an official adviser on January 20 when Obama took office. Summers, who was...

The Obama administration has just been Woodwarded, as in Bob Woodwarded. If his Washington Post report is accurate, General Jones, the National Security Advisor committed a serious civil-military relations mistake that could haunt the administration over the coming year. Up until now the administration has been nearly pitch-perfect on the issue of how to talk to the military about securing military advice in high command decision making and how to talk about the military advice they get. But this report, which seems authoritative because it reads like a verbatim transcript of the meeting (is Bob Woodward on the trip?), sounds...

(snip) "Now suppose you’re the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel? Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing. Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have “a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment.” Everyone in the room caught the phonetic...

President Barack Obama's top security adviser has told U.S. military commanders there are no plans to send more troops to Afghanistan for now and that the focus instead will be on economic development and reconstruction, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. National Security Adviser James Jones delivered that message last week in Afghanistan, where Marine Brigadier General Lawrence Nicholson hinted he could use more "thousands more" troops, the newspaper said. Jones' message seemed designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, although the Obama administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future, the Post said. "This...