Obama Loses Key Foreign Policy Advisor

Newsweek ^ | 10/01/2009 | Holly Bailey

[SDShack]

Big news from the West Wing: Mark Lippert, one of President Obama’s closest foreign-policy advisers, is leaving to rejoin the Navy. Lippert, who is deputy national-security adviser and chief of staff of the National Security Council, has worked for Obama since his first days in the Senate and later advised him during the campaign. Perhaps no one on the foreign-policy team, save for fellow campaign vet and top NSC aide Denis McDonough, is closer to Obama—a situation that has sometimes raised questions about the relationship between Obama and Lippert’s direct boss, national-security adviser Jim Jones.

[SDShack]

First one to go. Question is why and how many more?

[Yo-Yo]

Over Afghanistan policy?

[txroadkill]

Lippert is taking “leave” to rejoin the military as a Navy SEAL—though there’s no indication when he’ll return.

Um...doesn't telling the entire world he is a Seal just make him useless as a Seal.

[mombonn]

Wow, RATS already deserting a sinking ship?

[DAC21]

Our Armed Services are being infiltrated.

[pnh102]

Considering how weak 0bama has been in the foreign policy department, I cannot conclude that this is really that big of a loss.

[ravingnutter]

FWIW...Lippert was Obama's point man for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga...IF you believe Jerome Corsi:

Who is Mark Lippert?

IMHO, I have always found Corsi to be somewhat of a kook.

[twigs]

Actually, I think this smells. He’s taking leave with the plan to possibly return? Would you want someone aboard ship or wherever you might be who is going to return to the staff of the worst and most anti-military CIC this country has probably ever seen? I need to know a lot more to see this as positive in any way.

[Iron Munro]

An Obama plant?

[luckybogey]

He is not a SEAL. See related post.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2352632/posts

[OldDeckHand]

"Um...doesn't telling the entire world he is a Seal just make him useless as a Seal. "

Lippert wasn't a SEAL, and won't be a SEAL. He was assigned to a SEAL unit as their intelligence officer when he spent some time on active-duty as a Naval Reserve officer.

Mr. Lippert is resume building for his own political aspirations, IMHO. And, this mis-information coming from a WH source, just proves that there's no one in Obama's administration that understands the difference between the Civil Air Patron and the US Air Force.

[grey_whiskers]

Is this related to the proposal to allow both sexes on our nuclear subs?

Cheers!

[dancusa]

..national-security adviser Jim Jones.

Mark Lippert didn't drink the kool-aide?

[edcoil]

His foreign policy to date, has sucked.

Good riddance to the bad advise he has been getting.

[the long march]

rats leaving a sinking ship.....

[twigs]

Doesn’t it sound like that? I guess it’s too soon to tell.

[astyanax]

From wiki:
Lippert grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Stanford where he received his degree in international relations.[1] He started out as a policy advisor to Senator Patrick Leahy and a Vermont political organizer. He worked for five years in the Senate Appropriations Committee Foreign Operations Subcommittee. He also handled foreign policy and defense issues for the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. In 2005, he both became a senior foreign-policy aide to Senator Obama and joined the Navy Reserve. From 2007 until the summer of 2008, he served about a year[1] in what had been scheduled as a nine-month tour of duty in Iraq as an intelligence officer for the Navy SEALs; as of 2008[update] he is a lieutenant junior grade. He played a key role in Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

I agree. It sounds like he's gearing up for a political run.

[dalebert]

maybe he wants to help the unions take over the navy

[A Strict Constructionist]

“Lippert is taking “leave” to rejoin the military as a Navy SEAL—though there’s no indication when he’ll return.”

Based on the picture, I would say in about 60 pounds. I didn’t know the SEALS accepted communists, or do they have a French team.

[Pilsner]

Obama Loses Key Foreign Policy Advisor

Really? I didnt' hear about another Predator strike in Pakistan.