PhD expectations of commitment
My personal assessment is that the professor is correct. A good PhD student in my opinion is someone who is committed fully to the completion of the thesis, and spends 100% of working hours (and let's face it, even much beyond that) on it. There is no way around it, if one wishes to be a good academic. 

Also:
"expects PhD students to be committed to PhD completion above all else, regardless of subject interest or circumstances on the part of the student. Basically he wanted someone who would 100% be his yes-man."

My impression is that the premise of the sentence does not imply anything about being a yes man. It simply means full dedication. 

Following clarifications, the Professor did insinuate the candidate he/she should be a yes-man. This is a warning sign, and is unrelated to the question of dedication needed to complete a PhD thesis.