Obama Misses 60% of Security Briefings… and Blames Intelligence Community?
Bobby Eberle | Sep 30, 2014 | The Loft | 0
After all these years, I'm still amazed at the things Barack Obama says. I know I should be numb to it by now. After all, he continues to blame former President Bush for the Obama economy. He blames police officers whenever it's convenient to stir racial unrest. But I think this one takes the cake. With all the threats of Islamic terrorism around the world, Obama is blaming his intelligence officers for dropping the ball… there's just one problem with that.
First, let's take a look at Obama's appearance this past Sunday on "60 Minutes." As David Limbaugh points out, Obama loves to take personal credit when things go well, but he is quick to blame others when things go poorly.
News outlets are reporting that Obama acknowledged that his administration was surprised by the strength of the Islamic State, sort of. He lays the blame for any such underestimates at the feet of Jim Clapper, his director of intelligence. Isn't Clapper in the administration? It's as if Obama is every bit as mystified by Clapper's alleged oversight as the rest of us and as if he has no culpability for it whatsoever.
But it's even worse than that. For the truth is that this wasn't some kind of mistake in intelligence. Our intelligence services were fully aware of the strength and danger the Islamic State posed months and months ago and were aware of its aggressive pursuit of territorial expansion. It's not that we underestimated the Islamic State; it's that we overtly ignored it or that Obama was literally out to lunch — or on the golf course.
The pushback from legislators, military officials, and intelligence sources has been swift. Here's one report from CBS News:
But here's the kicker. Not only was Obama warned about the growing threat of ISIS and ignored those threats, but he has shown complete recklessness in addressing the seriousness of Islamic terrorism or ANY threat. As reported by the Government Accountability Institute, Obama has skipped nearly 60% of his presidential security briefings in his second term in office!
As reported by Breitbart, "members of the Defense establishment were 'flabbergasted' by Obama's attempt to shift the blame."
"Either the president doesn't read the intelligence he's getting or he's bull*****ing," a former senior Pentagon official "who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq" told the Daily Beast.
On Monday, others in the intelligence community similarly blasted Obama and said he's shown longstanding disinterest in receiving live, in-person PDBs that allow the Commander-in-Chief the chance for critical followup, feedback, questions, and the challenging of flawed intelligence assumptions.
It's clear that Obama knew what was brewing with this growing Islamic terror threat. He knew… and ignored it. Perhaps that's why he skips most of his daily security briefings… perhaps he doesn't want to address this threat at all. He seems much more comfortable shifting blame so that others look bad. How about getting serious about radical Islamic terrorism once and for all?!?!?
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