A Stunning Profile of Ben Rhodes, the Asshole Who is the President’s Foreign Policy Guru by Tom Ricks, Foreign Policy

… Perhaps the key sentence is this: “His lack of conventional real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.”

Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of politics — I have voted for Obama twice. Nor do I mind Rhodes’s contempt for many political reporters: “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little schmuck. This quotation seems to capture his worldview: “He referred to the American foreign policy establishment as the Blob. According to Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.”…

Rhodes and others around Obama keep on talking about doing all this novel thinking, playing from a new playbook, bucking the establishment thinking. But if that is the case, why have they given so much foreign policy power to two career hacks who never have had an original thought? I mean, of course, Joe Biden and John Kerry. I guess the answer can only be that those two are puppets, and (as in Biden’s case) are given losing propositions like Iraq to handle…

Read on.

Also see:

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru - New York Times Magazine

Official Says He Pushed a 'Narrative' to Media to Sell Iran Nuclear Deal - Washington Post

White House Admits it Played Us for Fools to Sell Iran Deal - New York Post

Why the Ben Rhodes Profile in the New York Times Magazine is Just Gross - Washington Post

A President Who Learned Nothing - Commentary Magazine

Let Us Now Psychoanalyze Young Ben Rhodes - Mother Jones

Rhodes to Perdition: An Exposé on Journalism in the Obama Era - Wall Street Journal

That Profile of Ben Rhodes? You Need to Read It Very Carefully - Mother Jones

Ben Rhodes, Liar - Washington Free Beacon

Ben Rhodes Admits Administration Lied to Sell Iran Deal - American Thinker

Obama Adviser Admits Lying to Media to Seal Iran Deal - Washington Times