Jones, middle left, Gates and McDonough in the Oval. Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Over at Foreign Policy magazine, the very well-connected Tom Ricks, formerly of the Washington Post, says he’s “picking up the vibe” that some “powerful people” want to see Defense Secretary Robert Gates replace Jim Jones as President Obama’s national security adviser. A Pentagon spokesman shoots down the story, calling it “utterly and completely absurd”—though Ricks, for his part, seems to think he’s protesting a bit too much. Your Gaggler, for the record, hasn’t heard this rumor, but she’s heard the many others that have circulated around Washington in recent months that have suggested that Jones just isn’t quite fitting in at the White House.

Administration officials have been hearing these whispers too—and they always deny them, insisting that things are all right and swell in Obamaland. But Jones’s PR problems haven’t gone away. He’s taken a much lower public profile than his predecessors in the Bush administration. When they had Jones’s job, Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley were incredibly visible to the press and the public. They briefed reporters, gave lots of interviews and went on TV. In the Obama White House, Jones has largely ceded that ground to his deputies, including Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, who worked for Obama during the campaign.

Perhaps knowing they have a problem, the White House has inched Jones out there a little bit more lately. Just over a month ago, Jones gave interviews to both the New York Times and the Washington Post for profiles that were published the exact same day. (Imagine that!) He gave a somewhat high-profile speech to the Atlantic Council outlining the administration’s national security goals. The White House has released photos showing Jones at key meetings. Still, the rumors haven’t stopped, which is perhaps why Gates, unsolicited, called up Post columnist David Ignatious to defend Jones last weekend, describing him as a the “glue that holds this team together.” He describes the rumors about Jones as “typical Washington” and insists they are coming from “lower levels,” not from anybody who actually is in the room. Is it enough to stop the whispers? In Washington, probably not, but the question is what the White House will do next. So far, the rumors haven't been damaging enough to merit Obama himself to come out and defend his man, as he had to do with Tim Geithner earlier this year. But it's still the relatively early days for the Obama team, and if the tension is truly there now, chances are it will only get worse.