Gen. Jones' Sudden Departure Marks Another Setback For Team Obama

In yet another high-level departure, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones will be leaving the White House just weeks before voters deliver what most pundits say will probably be a stinging rebuke to President Barack Obama's agenda.

Jones' decision to leave marks the end of a rocky tenure. His resignation had been rumored for months, but he had been embarrassed by recent revelations that he commonly referred to top administration officials, including former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and top political adviser David Axelrod, as "waterbugs" and "the mafia."

The waterbugs, Jones reportedly said, were too focused on short-term politics and didn't understand the military realities facing Obama's generals.

In announcing the latest defection from his administration Friday afternoon, Obama appeared to do his best to make everything seem like business as usual. He told his Rose Garden audience that Jones always had expected to leave after two years anyway.

"We have huge challenges ahead," Obama remarked somberly. "We remain a nation at war."

In the past two months, Obama's administration has been rocked by an unusual series of pre-midterm resignations. Among them: Emanuel, who is running for Chicago mayor; senior presidential adviser Larry Summers, who returned to Harvard; and former economics adviser Christina Romer, who made the ill-fated prediction that unemployment never would rise above 8 percent.

Also, White House budget director Peter Orszag announced his exit from the administration in June. That was also the month that Obama sacked Afghan War chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal and replaced him with Gen. David Petraeus.
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