Gen. Jones' Sudden Departure Marks Another Setback for Team Obama

In yet another high-level departure, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones will be leaving the White House just weeks before voters deliver what most pundits say will probably be a stinging rebuke to President Barack Obama's agenda.

Jones' decision to leave marks the end of a rocky tenure. His resignation had been rumored for months, but he had been embarrassed by recent revelations that he commonly referred to top administration officials, including former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and top political adviser David Axelrod, as "waterbugs" and "the mafia."

The waterbugs, Jones reportedly said, were too focused on short-term politics and didn't understand the military realities facing Obama's generals.

In announcing the latest defection from his administration Friday afternoon, Obama appeared to do his best to make everything seem like business as usual. He told his Rose Garden audience that Jones always had expected to leave after two years anyway.

"We have huge challenges ahead," Obama remarked somberly. "We remain a nation at war."

In the past two months, Obama's administration has been rocked by an unusual series of pre-midterm resignations. Among them: Emanuel, who is running for Chicago mayor; senior presidential adviser Larry Summers, who returned to Harvard; and former economics adviser Christina Romer, who made the ill-fated prediction that unemployment never would rise above 8 percent.

Also, White House budget director Peter Orszag announced his exit from the administration in June. That was also the month that Obama sacked Afghan War chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal and replaced him with Gen. David Petraeus.

Obama also announced Friday that Jones would be replaced by Team Obama insider Tom Donilon, the deputy national security adviser. Donilon reportedly is viewed negatively by veteran military officers in the Pentagon, which threatens to exacerbate the division between the White House and the Pentagon that was recently exposed in author Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars."

Donilon's reputation with the Pentagon is reportedly so poor that some D.C. wags have speculate his appointment could even accelerate Defense Secretary Robert Gates' timetable for leaving the administration. Gates is expected to depart by the end of 2011.

According to Woodward, Gates once described the prospect of Donilon replacing Jones as "a disaster." Gates denied that report on Friday.

Pentagon officials have complained to the media that Donilon, who is billed as a rising star in the West Wing, lacks respect for senior military officers, and doesn't fully understand the realities facing commanders in the field.
Ironically, many of the criticisms of Donilon came from Jones himself, who was Donilon's boss.

There has been speculation that Jones' candid remarks, as quoted in Woodward's tome, may have accelerated his exit.

Among the ugly inner workings of the Obama White House expose by Woodward:

• Donilon had a habit of using his cachet with the president to order people around, and "unloaded" on Pentagon staff. Woodward writes that this provoked "sniping that Donilon didn't have the broad experience for the sensitive White House position and lived in a lawyer's bunker."

• Woodward writes that Donilon's tendency to "pop off" with strong opinions about places he'd never visited. He never visited Afghanistan, for example, but freely voiced his opinions. This so offended Gates that he once nearly walked out of an Oval Office meeting. As a consequence, he says Jones told Donilon: "You have no credibility with the military."

• Jones criticized Donilon for being estranged or indifferent to the lives of the people who worked for him. Jones felt relationships were the key to getting things done in Washington.

• When Donilon wanted Gen. Douglas Fraser, the head of Southern Command, to be fired for slow responses, Jones reportedly told him: "Calm down. You’ve got to realize that SouthCom — do you even know where it is? SouthCom is always at the bottom of the resource list. They get the last helpings from the military pie. They’re always shortchanged. I know Fraser. He’s a good guy. He’ll straighten this out. It’s going to take longer than we would like.’”

• Jones frequently was incensed that top Obama insiders such as Emanuel would bypass his office and go directly to his subordinate Donilon. Woodward reports Jones once confronted Emanuel over the practice.
No one has question's Donilon's organizational skills and ability to get things done, and in the Rose Garden ceremony Jones described Donilon as "my teammate and friend."

But there's another reason the choice of Donilon is controversial even before he moves into Jones' old office: His long resume as a Democratic insider. The Washington Examiner, for example, has described him as a top lobbyist for Fannie Mae during the housing bubble. He later became vice president of the troubled mortgage lender..

At various points in his career he has worked for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden. Donilon was Obama's debate coach on foreign policy issues during the 2008 campaign.

Donilon, like Vice President Biden, for whom he worked for many years, questioned the need to escalate the war in Afghanistan by expanding the troop presence there last fall.

The president eventually decided to commit 30,000 more soldiers, fewer than the Pentagon had requested, while also announcing a July 2011 date to begin the troop withdrawal there.

The appointment of Donilon means the Pentagon will have less representation near the center of Washington power. Jones had served as Marine Corps commandant from 1999 to 2003, and also was the former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe.

Along with the decision to replace Emanuel with Obama aide Pete Rouse, the Donilon for Jones switch marks the second time that an insider has replaced a figure who was brought in after the 2008 campaign to help Obama run the government.

Analysts have expressed concerns that, although every presidency begins to operate in a bubble isolated from the concerns of everyday Americans, that this appears to be a particular issue for Obama. Donilon's appointment to replace Jones likely will aggravate those concerns, sources say.