Obama moves to bolster national security staff
On the same day he unveiled a review of his Afghanistan war strategy, President Barack Obama moved to bolster the White House national security team, which has been short-staffed after a series of changes.
Obama tapped Brooke Anderson, currently part of the U.S. mission to the United Nations, as chief of staff and counselor for the National Security Council.
An expert on nuclear nonproliferation, Anderson is ambassador and alternate representative for special political affairs at the UN.
She advised Obama’s campaign, helping to set up his July 2008 trip to Europe and the Middle East, and then was a spokeswoman on national security matters during Obama’s presidential transition.
At the NSC, she replaces Denis McDonough, who was promoted to deputy national security adviser. McDonough assumed his new role after Tom Donilon succeeded Gen. James Jones in the top job at NSC.
Anderson’s appointment is one in a series of staff changes planned. As Politico’s Carol Lee and Glenn Thrush reported, Obama will spend part of his Christmas break in Hawaii considering how to reshuffle the West Wing staff as he looks ahead to his 2012 re-election campaign.
PHOTO CREDIT: REUTERS/Jim Young (President Barack Obama walks back to the White House after meeting with business leaders at Blair House)
Senior Obama aide leaving White House for military service
President Barack Obama’s longest-serving foreign policy aide, Mark Lippert, is leaving the White House to serve as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy.
Lippert, a 36-year-old Navy reservist and Iraq war veteran, will leave his job as chief of staff for the White House National Security Council to return to active duty, a White House statement said.
The White House did not say where Lippert would be deployed.
Lippert’s departure was described in some media accounts as a “shakeup” but White House sources said he would be back after his service is up in six to nine months.
Obama, himself, said Lippert would be welcome back at the White House anytime.
Lippert joined Obama’s Senate staff in 2005 and later was a top foreign policy aide on Obama’s presidential campaign, but left for nearly a year when he was called up to advise the Navy SEALs on intelligence in Iraq. Lippert returned from Iraq in mid-2008 and became a regular presence on Obama’s campaign plane during the final stretch against Republican John McCain.
Obama called Lippert a “close friend” and said he would miss “his counsel, his excellent work at the NSC, and his good cheer.”
“Obama, himself, said Lippert would be welcome back at the White House anytime.”
I understand that superfluous commas add a lot to the aesthetics of a sentence, but it’s your job to write. That sentence, as written, makes no sense.
