ben rhodes

Just released from the White House communications shop:
The White House today announced that Deputy National Security Director and National Security Council chief of staff Mark Lippert will be returning to active duty in the U.S. Navy. Denis McDonough will remain Deputy National Security Advisor and assume the role of chief of staff to the [...]

Via Marc Lynch’s Twitter feed, Lee Hamilton — 9/11 Commissioner, Iraq Study Grouper, former Indiana Congressman, all-around wise man — asks some very fundamental questions about the Afghanistan war:
Strategically, there are two broad and fundamental questions to be answered. First, how will our departure impact our regional and security interests over the next decade and [...]

Politico’s Ben Smith adds to Laura Rozen’s report on President-elect Barack Obama’s South Asia-themed dinner last week. Ben learns that Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi was there, along with an important defense adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign, Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration (Ret).
That raises a question: why doesn’t — as best I can tell — [...]

On her excellent new Foreign Policy blog, Laura Rozen has a great scoop about a secret dinner last week between President-elect Obama at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars downtown. In attendance were Democratic foreign-policy wise man Lee Hamilton — whom, as Laura notes, has mentored many of Obama’s foreign policy advisers — and [...]

So did you see that bonkers New York Times piece about how you have to disclose all your embarrassing IMs and Facebook messages and Twitters if you want a job in an Obama administration? Well, perhaps it’s too late for some. The New York Observer’s Gillian Reagan did a piece about the Facebook lives of [...]