The Enemies of Gen. Jones
The last time THE SCRAPBOOK checked in with Obama administration National Security Adviser Jim Jones it was less than a month after the inauguration and the retired Marine general had already found himself at the center of a minor fiasco. After offering the job of U.S. ambassador to Iraq to Anthony Zinni, Jones was overruled and the offer revoked. Jones offered Zinni a consolation prize, and Zinni told the press he could "stick that with whatever other offers" he might have. And that was pretty much the high-point of Jones's tenure at the NSC.
Around the same time, Jones gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he "made it clear that he will . . . be the primary conduit of national security advice to Obama, eliminating the 'back channels' that at times in the Bush administration allowed Cabinet secretaries and the vice president's office to unilaterally influence and make policy out of view of the others."
But two months later, it was clear that any back channels Jones had eliminated were fast being reestablished. "The system is full of workarounds to cut Jones out of the loop and keep the business of government running," one administration official told Politico.
What started as a trickle of bad news-- Time's Joe Klein conceded "some concern" within the administration about Jones and Foreign Policy's Laura Rozen reported that several sources had "described Jones as having a problematic tenure at the NSC"--soon became a flood.
The administration tried to prop Jones up by sitting him down with both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Jones reassured the Post, "I'm not only an outsider, but I'm a 20-years-older-than-anybody-around outsider." The one thing the politically tone-deaf Jones took credit for was convincing the president to punt on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell--the policy that keeps uncloseted gay men and women from serving in the military. Jones went "to see him personally on it." And when the Times asked Jones about "sniping from staff members that he went biking at lunchtime and left work early," he seemed "about to crush his coffee cup," before he responded directly to those staffers--presumably 20-years-younger-than-Jones insiders--who were staying past 7 P.M.: "Congratulations. To me, that means you're not organized."
Just this week, liberal blogger Steve Clemons claimed a fresh push by Jones's "enemies" inside the administration. "Knives getting longer" is how one source described to him the latest effort to throw Jones under the bus. The same day, former Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks said he was "picking up the vibe that some powerful people want to have Defense Secretary Robert Gates . . . replace retired Marine Gen. Jones." And Fox News reported "One NSC staff member claimed that Jones is so forgetful that at times he appears to have Alzheimer's disease." Sounds like some of Jones's coworkers are better organized than he thought.
'Affirmative Action Baby'
The New York Times reported last week that among the documents Judge Sonia Sotomayor submitted to the Senate in advance of hearings over her nomination to the Supreme Court was a videotape from the early 1990s in which she describes herself as an "affirmative action baby":
The clips include lengthy remarks about her experiences as an "affirmative action baby" whose lower test scores were overlooked by admissions committees at Princeton University and Yale Law School because, she said, she is Hispanic and had grown up in poor circumstances.
Our colleague Michael Goldfarb at weeklystandard.com pointed out the liberal hypocrisy here:
As a matter of official policy, these schools lowered the bar for Sotomayor, so why do her supporters--who tend also to be supporters of affirmative action--not celebrate her nomination, and her career, as proof that affirmative action works? The former president of Princeton University specifically denied that Sotomayor had needed the help of affirmative action in order to gain admission to Princeton. Conservatives who suggested otherwise were called racists or worse.
We're waiting for the liberal apologies, now that they know the truth.
Buy These Books
Hear ye! Hear ye! Not one but two new publications by friends of THE SCRAPBOOK are now available from booksellers everywhere (and online):
Kimberly Kagan's The Surge: A Military History (Encounter Books) builds on work she published in THE WEEKLY STANDARD and elsewhere. Everyone who's anyone in D.C. seems to have decided to forget that they opposed the surge in Iraq in 2007 and deprecated its early successes. Or they've decided to pretend that there was no surge, or that it was destined to succeed, and was therefore no big deal. Kagan explains what happened, why it was a big deal, and what lessons of generalship, military strategy, and the importance of the intelligent application of military power we can learn from it. President Obama should read the book, but probably won't. The rest of us should read it, enjoy it, and profit from so doing.
Our other friend is a posthumous one: Winston Churchill. His terrific collection of essays, published in 1932, on themes ranging from art to politics to war to Moses, has been reissued by ISI Books under the superb editorship of James W. Muller. Muller's introduction and footnotes explain what you need to know to fully appreciate Churchill, and Churchill's spectacular essays explain what you need to know to appreciate life. If you've never read Thoughts and Adventures, you're in for a treat. If you've read it before, the essays are well worth a rereading--or giving as a gift to someone who hasn't yet had the pleasure.
Sentences We Didn't Finish
"What a relief to have an urbane, cultivated, curious president who's out and about, engaged in the world. Not dangerously detached, as W. was, or darkly stewing . . . " ("Can the One Have Fun?" Maureen Dowd, New York Times, June 10).
The 'Responsible Neo-Nazi Community' Had No Comment
"John de Nugent, an acquaintance who describes himself as a white separatist, . . . called [James W.] von Brunn [the Holocaust Museum shooter] a genius, but described the shooting as the act of 'a loner and a hothead.' 'The responsible white separatist community condemns this,' he said. 'It makes us look bad.' "
("A Suspect's Long History of Hate, and Signs of Strain," Washington Post, June 11).
There Will Always Be an England
"Two dukes went wrong in a piece about the political power of walking. It was not the 8th Duke of Devonshire, but the 9th, who insisted on prosecuting ramblers who staged the 'Kinder Scout trespass' on his land in 1932. . . . Nor was it the 10th Duke of Norfolk who later apologised over the resulting jailings, but the 11th . . ." (a correction in the - Guardian, June 10).
Help Wanted
Charles Krauthammer seeks a research assistant for a one- or two-year term. Send résumé to job@charleskrauthammer.com.