patrick.net

http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/19/13678070/michael-flynn-national-security-adviser-actual-job

One of the most successful recent national security advisers was Stephen Hadley, who held the post under then-President George W. Bush (and is rumored to be in the running for Trump’s defense secretary).

Hadley was a quiet operator whom both the Pentagon and State Department trusted to accurately relay their views to the president before giving Bush his own assessment. Working with his predecessor Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, Hadley successfully marginalized the more hawkish faction in the Bush administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney. He persuaded Bush to agree to the Iraq surge and curtail some of the CIA’s most brutal and controversial detainee interrogation programs.

But if his past record is any guide, Flynn is unlikely to be the type of “honest broker” that has historically made for a successful national security adviser. He was removed from his post running the Defense Intelligence Agency after losing a bureaucratic battle with the CIA and butting heads with his superiors in the Pentagon — one of the government organizations he will now help oversee from his White House post.