What Does National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Do All Day?

Official Washington is laying it on thick when it comes to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s “secret” hospitalization for colon cancer surgery.

The White House claims it was surprised not to have been informed of Secretary Austin’s hospitalization at the Walter Reed Medical Center, which is run by the federal government. Members of the Biden administration seem all too ready to level blame on the sick man, ie. the one who just underwent surgery with complications, not the one with a chair behind the Resolute Desk.

DOOCY: "If the administration is gonna go to such great lengths to keep secrets about the Defense Secretary's health, how can anybody be certain that the administration would not go to the same lengths to keep secret problems with President Biden's health?"

KIRBY: "…It's not… pic.twitter.com/Yb6658s59B

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 9, 2024

When Joe Biden took office, the media fawned over the youngest national security advisor to date, the immensely talented Jake Sullivan. POLITICO cooed about the “Inexorable Rise of Jake Sullivan,” and the president himself called him the greatest mind of his generation. Perhaps Sullivan was too busy attending conferences about how clever he is these past couple weeks and didn’t have time to keep track of a nonentity like General Austin (D-Raytheon). Totally understandable, the little people need to do a better job managing up, after all.

To be clear, there are few entities of the Federal government that actually do anything useful. The Post Office used to be one, and the military still is. With 2.8 million employees, many of whom are forward deployed in or near some of the most dangerous places in earth, the military — to put it terms the political establishment might understand — “matters.” Not to beat a dead horse, but a growing war is raging in the Middle East and our alleged friend Ukraine is fighting for her survival for a third year against Russian predations. If the military screws up, there is no passing the buck. And more often than not, they do their job.

By stark contrast, the greatest exercise most DC politicians get consists of pointing or wagging their fingers.

In the old days, every morning there would be a meeting in the White House Situation Room (recently redecorated) at which the principles or delegates of all the key national security departments or agencies would gather and share notes about what was happening in the world. Now that we are governed by a more moral, intelligent and evolved lot, this exercise may no longer be deemed necessary, hence Austin’s absence was so easily overlooked. Except, of course, we aren’t.

The Establishment needs to stop being “shocked” it didn’t know where the SECDEF was and start doing something useful. Send Austin some flowers and fire Jake Sullivan.