Jones Emerges as Strong Voice for Obama

The 'skunk at the family picnic' has Obama's ear

(NEWSER) - It may have looked as though Joe Biden lost last fall’s argument over strategy in Afghanistan, but he actually emerged with a powerful, well-defined role in the administration. His position, in his own words: “the skunk at the family picnic.” Biden has been the in-house skeptic on Afghanistan, but his subtlety and discretion have deeply impressed President Obama, Politico reports. “He’s not off the leash,” says one official. More»

Obama administration prefers euphemisms instead

(NEWSER) - The would-be Times Square bomber calls himself a "Muslim soldier," and the Fort Hood shooter calls himself a "soldier of Allah." But when Team Obama refers to our enemy, it uses euphemisms like "a loose network of violent extremists." How meaningless and cowardly, writes Charles Krauthammer. "This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue." Let's call a spade a spade: The nation's true enemy, "Islamist fundamentalism," is the "common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century." More»

Pundits can't understand how the general let this happen

(NEWSER) - Stanley McChrystal’s Rolling Stone stunner has pundits baffled—no one can understand how he let this happen. Here’s what they’re saying:

• Joe Klein of Time defends the “McChrystal I know” as “an extraordinary man” who, unfortunately, has no PR skills and is “incapable of fudging the truth.” He’ll have to be fired, “and it is a real tragedy, because Stanley McChrystal is precisely the sort of man who should be leading American troops in battle.”

General has some explaining to do after mocking, criticizing colleagues

(AP) - The top US commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain his controversial comments about colleagues in a Rolling Stone interview, Obama administration officials said today. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has issued an apology for the article—in which either he or his aides slammed Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, James Jones, and Karl Eikenberry, not to speak of expressing "disappointment" with the president and "wimps in the White House—has been ordered to attend the monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person tomorrow. More»

They keep downplaying terrorists' jihadist connections

(NEWSER) - The Weekly Standard rips into the Obama administration's anti-terror record in a scathing new essay. Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn accuse the administration of failing to detect three plots beforehand (Times Square, the Christmas Day attempt, and Fort Hood), taking credit for dumb luck when two of the attempts failed, and trying hard to minimize the significance of each attack and the suspects' "connections to the global jihadist network." More»