(no subject)

[randomness]

Boy, talk about burying a story*! Next to no one is talking about Secretary Hagel leaving the administration.

This piece in Politico hits the major points:

The defense secretary, regardless of his lofty title, was never part of the president’s inner decision-making circle on foreign policy, which the sources said would remain intact (and it’s worth noting, the sources said, that powerful Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey is), and few expect his departure to solve the deeper problems plaguing Obama’s national security team given the iron grip exerted on foreign policymaking by Obama’s West Wing staff.

And the move alone will do little to help a struggling second-term president mend what the sources said were far deeper rifts within his overburdened West Wing-based national security team, pointing in particular to long-simmering tensions between McDonough, who had been deputy national security adviser before moving up to chief of staff, and Rice, the worst-kept secret struggle in Washington.

More broadly, the dumping of Hagel leaves unanswered the key foreign policy dilemma that hangs over the remainder of Obama’s presidency: It’s clear that Obama, propelled to office six years ago on the promise of ending two unpopular wars, must now radically readjust his priorities from a posture of military withdrawal and Pentagon budget cuts to one of engagement, but it’s not at all clear how he plans to do so.

...

Hagel’s main gripe, according to people close to him, was what he viewed as a disorganized National Security Council run by Rice—a criticism shared by McDonough, according to a senior administration official. (An email to McDonough wasn’t returned.)

That observation puts Hagel in good company: His predecessors as defense secretary, Bob Gates and Leon Panetta, have both taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing Obama’s White House team for power-hoarding and dysfunctional decision-making at the expense of the Pentagon. “The whole system is dysfunctional. The lines of communications [between the NSC and the Department of Defense] are totally broken,” the staffer told me. “I hope that whoever takes over fixes it, and fast.”

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*Yeah, yeah, I know this wasn't planned. I'm talking about effect, not intent. And I'm not dismissing the importance of the news from Missouri, either.

Comments

[eac.livejournal.com]

Yes, honestly, I hadn't heard a word about it.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Only reason I knew about it was that I follow @attackerman on Twitter and he was talking about it all yesterday afternoon.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that, apparently: the top few candidates for Secretary of Defense have turned the job down.

Who can blame them? The Democrats were swept into power in 2006 based on opposition to the Iraq War; being the Secretary of Defense under a Democrat President is a thankless job, much like say the Secretary of Health and Human Services is under a GOP President.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Truthfully it's even worse than you say, because this particular president seems not to really want a Secretary of Defense at all. His West Wing cabal is evidently in control of defense policy and he appears to be ok with that.

I think that's a big reason no one wants the job; it's clear that the decision making powers aren't actually going to be in their hands anyway, so why bother?

That's significantly worse than than the usual ambivalence about the DoD in a Democratic administration.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

I agree. I've seen a number of commenters note that Obama seems to like the trappings of being President more than the work of actually being President. He's in his element if he's giving a speech or traveling the world, but when it comes to working with Congress or commanding the military, he just doesn't really want to bother with it, and it shows.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I actually disagree with that assessment. One measure of whether the President cares about an issue is how closely he manages it. By this measure it is clear that there are some issues he cares so much about he won't let it out of the hands of his very close advisors.

One of these is Defense, where his three Secretaries of Defense have all suffered from micromanagement at the hands of the President's inner circle of West Wing advisors. Another is on economic policy, where the President has generally tried to choose loyalty above all, sometimes successfully (Jack Lew), sometimes backing down in the face of concerted opposition (Larry Summers).

The problem isn't that he hasn't been paying attention to these issues. It's that he has been paying close attention, but only been interested in listening to a tight circle of advisors, many of whom (in my opinion) are wrong.

He isn't the first President to do this, and he won't be the last, but I generally like this a lot less when the President is doing something I don't like.