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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder - Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. More

Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal. He previously served as the politics editor, and is now a contributing editor, for The Atlantic, where he curated the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributed to the magazine. He was also a chief political consultant to CBS News. Earlier, at NJ's Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of "Hotline On Call," a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC's "The Note." Born in New York City, raised in Central Florida, Ambinder is a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.

What's The (Invisible?) Jim Jones Up To These Days?

By Marc Ambinder
Apr 23 2009, 4:28 PM ET Comment

At the bottom of an item about new responsibilities for war czar Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute of the National Security Council, the very-well sourced Laura Rozen writes of National Security Adviser Jim Jones: 

Several sources have in recent weeks described Jones as having a problematic tenure at the NSC, a subject that no one there has wanted to discuss or would provide comment on. Jones had previously wanted to harmonize regional directorates to be consistent across the NSC, State Department, and the Defense Department, and he leaned towards both the NSC and State Department adopting the military's regional command structure. But the other departments did not want to reorganize their regional bureaus to conform with the military model. The promotion of Lute, a general, to have a Central Command type portfolio plus India would seem to be consistent with Jones' military-oriented outlook. Obama's style, sources said, seems far less hierarchical. Obama's preference, they described, is for a more wide-open process where he reaches out to seek the views of people at different levels regardless of their station.

Not sure whether there's more to the story about Jones fitting in with the rest of the national security principals. But Rozen, a careful journalist, seems to be hinting at trouble ahead.

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