A White House official has been fired for bad-mouthing President Obama on Twitter under a pseudonymous account.
Jofi Joseph was the director in the non-proliferation section of the National Security Staff at the White House (a fancy way of saying “national security guy”) until it was discovered that he had been tweeting messages critical of the Obama Administration under the handle @natsecwonk.
Joseph had apparently been at it for over two years, and his actions were described as “tormenting [to] the foreign policy community with insulting comments and revealing internal Obama administration information,” by The Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin, who broke the story.
To wit, as @natsecwonk, Joseph often insulted the appearance and intellectual rigor of his White House superiors, including Secretary of State John Kerry. Sure, we all do it, but that’s because we don’t work for the silly fark.
The bad news? You can’t look up any of @natsecwonk’s tweets because he shut the account down a while ago. The good news is we have a sort of “greatest hits” here:
“I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me.”
Nice one, Joseph. Wait, who?
“Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Wiener? Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers and Cass Sunstein …. “
Top Clinton aide/Congressman/double White House senior official combo!
“So when will someone do us the favor of getting rid of Sarah Palin and the rest of her white trash family? What utter useless garbage …. “
Hey, no one is more upset about the cancellation of Bristol Palin: Life’s A Tripp than me, Jos.
“@MiekeEoyang Come on, I expected better of you. @jrubinblogger is CRAZY unhinged while @noonanjo is an overweight paid Romney shill.”
That’s a direct insult to WaPo conservative blogger Jen Rubin and Romney campaign national security staffer John Noonan. During the Romney campaign, by the by.
“‘Has shitty staff.’ #ObamaInThreeWords.”
*mic drop* … wait, I have a GIF for that.
Politico reports that Joseph is thought to be behind another controversial Hill account, @dchobbyist, though he did not respond for comment.
Reactions on the Hill are still pouring in, but most in the foreign policy community were shocked to learn of Joseph’s antics as @natsecwonk, mostly because he was well-regarded by his peers. His wife, Carolyn Leddy, is also a well-respected staffer on the GOP side of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Of course, the administration is a little bummed about being thrown under the bus in 140 characters or less.
“My friends call me Batman,” @natsecwonk once tweeted. Guess the White House decided that Jofi Joseph wasn’t the staff member they needed right now.
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