Update: Chuck Hagel to replace Gates? McDonough replaces Lippert and speechwriter Ben Rhodes will take on National Security duties; Backlash? Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Resigns(Lippert was Obama’s NSA adviser during the campaign also)

Update: Ace HQ posts on a ROY that Hagel is in and Gates out within a year. Sounds like peeps are getting clued into the antiHawk stance of TOTUS and withdrawing from posts. Get out of there Hillary!

As Think Progress notes, last night the boss floated a very well-sourced rumor that Secretary Gates will be out by the end of the year and replaced by Chuck Hagel, who the boss described as an “advocate of retreat everywhere.”

Politico:

Taking Lippert’s place as chief of staff to the National Security Council will be Denis McDonough, a deputy national security adviser, and chief foreign policy speechwriter Ben Rhodes will step up to assume some of McDonough’s responsibilities, the administration announced.

More on Rhodes, Politico again:

Rhodes is a de facto policy advisor, has worked on a novel (The Oasis of Love — “about a megachurch in Houston, a dog track and a failed romance”), received a master’s in fiction writing from NYU, and spent several years working for Democratic foreign policy godfather Lee Hamilton.

..Not long ago, Rhodes was one of the obscure guys who wrote Obama’s campaign speeches in Starbucks and played video games

into the early morning hours. Now he attends national security meetings and takes writer’s refuge in a secret office on the third floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building..

…He is the only member of Obama’s six-person speechwriting team who has doubled as policy adviser, a role he dabbled in during the campaign. He has an open invitation to attend national security meetings, where he often pipes up as a voice for the president to say, “Hey, I know he’s going to want to talk about this.”

“A lot of times, Ben will just run up to the Oval for meetings about foreign policy stuff,” said Favreau, who hired Rhodes in July 2007. “And the president will go around and ask his advice.”..

Fabulous. FOREIGN POLICY ‘STUFF’. And Lee Hamilton is still advising on national security speeches as well!

“He really understands the president’s voice,” said Axelrod. “They’ve got a great mind-meld on these issues.”

Part of the reason for that is in a framed photograph Rhodes keeps in his office: There’s Rhodes, McDonough, Obama and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, one of the Democratic Party’s top foreign policy figures, in August 2007.

Rhodes had just earned a master’s degree in fiction writing from New York University when he was offered a job as a writer for Hamilton in 2002. A Manhattan native, Rhodes went on to write the Iraq Study Group Report and help draft policy recommendations for the 9/11 Commission, which Hamilton co-chaired.

Got that? His total experience was FICTION WRITING MASTERS and he WROTE THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT. Who the hexx is running our government Hollywood?

Rhodes keeps in regular contact with Hamilton, who said Obama has thanked him “for making Ben available.”  Rhodes said Hamilton still reviews Obama’s major foreign policy addresses. “We run most of the big foreign policy speeches by him,” he said. “Just kind of like, ‘What do you think of this?’”..

It’s ‘kind of like’, frakkin scary who’s runnign the show ain’t it?

Rhodes also helped draft policy recommendations for the 9/11 Commission and wrote large chunks of the Iraq Study Group report.

He was not named to the Obama campaign’s national security working group, a decision that drew criticism from several liberal bloggers, including Ezra Klein

Well now Ezra will be happy won’t he?

Rhodes is a foreign affairs realist who has worked on national security and Iraq war policy.

I fear ‘realist’ means abandoning allies and not looking for victory.

Rhodes was part of Obama’s foreign policy team that included Gregory B. Craig, Richard Danzig, Scott Gration, Anthony Lake, Denis McDonough, Samantha Power, Susan E. Rice and Daniel Shapiro.Lake, Eli, “Obama’s Brain Trust Taking Shape,” New York Sun, Feb. 21, 2008

Rhodes was the self-described “elder statesman” of a speechwriting team that included Jon Favreau and Adam Frankel.

M’kay this is the ELDER STATESMAN of a group that includes that tool Favreau who groped the Hillary standee. Good grief.

Hmmmm..

Via Drudge, Breitbart:

President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser has called it quits. The White House says Mark Lippert is leaving the administration to return to active duty in the U.S. Navy.

Obama said in a statement Thursday that he was not surprised when Lippert broke the news because he is “passionate about the Navy.” Obama says he admires and respects Lippert’s devotion to his country and that he’s answering the call to active duty service.

Lippert also had been chief of staff for the National Security Council. He served as Obama’s national security adviser during the presidential campaign.

C+C Music Factory courtewsy of gigouk76