President-Elect Obama startled me yesterday, in a GOOD way, by nominating General James L. Jones as the 21st National Security Advisor.  I don’t know much about General Jones, but I’ve heard of him many times in my nine years of Joint duty, and it was all good.  The Marines who had served under him, LOVE the man.  Friends in Europe who were there when he was the NATO Commander SACEUR didn’t have a bad thing to say about him.  That speaks volumes right there.  Everything I’ve read about him over the past couple days have been positive.

I know there’s all sorts of talk about, “Even a broke clock, etc.” but this gives me pause.  This is a GOOD choice for the National Security Advisor during a time when we’re not all feeling that secure.

I can’t remember where I read it or heard it, but a few years ago, I remember someone talking about, “How come we don’t have the smart people running the country?  Really!  Let’s get Warren Buffet to run the treasury, get Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to come in and straighten out our communications, get some guys from MIT to get our hiways back in shape.”  This feels like some of the smart people are coming to Washington.