I missed my chance to post about the Freeman meltdown, which is really a shame because it turns out that the guy is a feverish quivering whackjob. Now the best transition team ever is busy vetting anti-Israel partisans without open financial ties to Saudi Arabia - maybe Scowcroft or Zinni. Although probably not Zinni.

In the meantime NSA Chief Jones has transitioned seamlessly from creating an anti-Israel paper trail for State to meeting with the President several times a day. John Brennan - who really, really wants to engage Iran - is officially the Deputy National Security Adviser for Counterterrorism but unofficially the guy who meets with Obama "before any major intelligence briefing." Puneet Talwar - who also loves himself some Iran engagement is heading the Mideast section.

And then there's Samantha Power, who from her position as Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs has already managed to push Obama into the Durban II debacle. No word yet on whether she's moved forward on subtle plan for detonating the US-Israeli alliance.

The awesome thing about this group, by the by, is not just that they're hand-picked appointees totally outside the Congressional vetting process. It's that they're hand-picked appointees totally outside the Congressional vetting process who are grabbing more and more power from any appointees who might be subject to Congressional scrutiny. Or to any scrutiny at all:

Under the leadership of national security advisor Gen. James L. Jones (ret.), the Obama NSC has moved to assert greater White House control over the policymaking process. In official Washington, who's in the room as well as who runs the meetings can be a key source of power and influence. It is therefore worth noting that Jones has directed NSC officials to lead interagency meetings with their counterparts not only at the principals and deputies level, but also in regional interagency working groups that were previously headed by State Department officials.

Some outside observers said the White House seems to be "shadowing" the other agencies. "They are trying to change the culture, to create a mega White House, and mega NSC," a former Hill Democratic foreign-policy hand said. For many federal agency heads, the Obama administration has appointed a corresponding White House "czar" he noted: there's a secretary of health and human services, and a White House healthcare czar. There's a secretary of energy and administrator of the EPA, and a White House energy czar...

But the added agencies and expanded authorities also add complexity to the organization, he cautioned. "With the possible exception of Jones, I don't know anyone who was brought in because they have special skills in managing a process," Destler further observed. "Obama wants to have a lot of strains of information to view and consider things himself. But I don't see how that works in the long run. The president has too much to do. It is just too much of a burdern for the president to assume. Some things sort themselves out. Some people turn out to be good channels to the president; some not."

In other news, Jones just got done taking a meeting with Carter. I wonder if they discussed their mutual inclination to blame Israel for Palestinian intransigence. Probably not. That's not an area of the world that Carter's obsessed with. Probably never came up.

References and previously after the jump...