I totally sympathize with the idea, as expressed by the newly-spotlighted NSC advisor, that in years past he "sacrificed my family life for my career," and therefore doesn't want to work the hours you see from White House national security staffers who sometimes return phone calls well after 9pm. But with all due respect to the general, isn't that a better argument for not being national security advisor than for working short hours? The big bad world never sleeps, and coup plotters and terrorists generally don't schedule their activities around eastern standard time sleep schedules, after all.
Of course, the discussion around today's dual Jones profiles in the Times and Post is almost all about access and work habits and the like; no one has yet demonstrated that Obama's foreign policymaking is in some real way dysfunctional, so for the moment this is all a bit trivial.
--Michael Crowley