In The News Today...

From September 2012:

"Vietor did not dispute the numbers, but said the fact that the president, during a time of war, does not attend his daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis is “not particularly interesting or useful.”"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-obama-skipping-more-than-half-of-his-daily-intelligence-meetings/2012/09/10/6624afe8-fb49-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html

"The Government Accountability Institute, a watchdog non-profit organization, calculated the number of times Obama has received daily oral intelligence briefings, or the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB). The group found that as of Sept. 29, the President had attended 42.4 percent of PDBs during his first term and 41.3 percent during his second term."

"“I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said."

http://rt.com/usa/191944-obama-absent-intelligence-briefings/

Of course, the unabashed supporters say it is no big deal:

"But as the Washington Post reported then, Obama structured his White House operation so that he reads his PDB every day "but he does not always require an in-person briefing every day," so "it is specious to say he has 'skipped' a meeting that was not actually scheduled." The Post also revealed that Obama sometimes meets with intelligence briefers but that those meetings are not listed in his official schedule as a PDB, compromising the data set upon which GAI relies.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/09/30/conservative-media-blames-rise-of-islamic-state/200949

I said it in 2012 and I'll say it again now--no matter what any other President did in regards to these briefings, I think the current President is missing the point and missing the boat. The actual physical briefing is where the President and the other folks can question reports, toss ideas around, dig deeper, etc. It isn't that he can't read the information, I am sure that he does. It is that he doesn't interact with the information as much as is necessary at this point in our history.

The weak "Clapper screwed up" excuses ring hollow as these things happen--the buck stops in the Oval Office, not somewhere else. There may well be others at fault but it is up to the President to pick the right people, ask the right questions, and demand performance from those people.

As brilliant as he supposedly is, attention to what was going on may have led him to ask questions about things that didn't seem quite right when briefed to him. Perhaps the 2+2 of the report and the words of the briefer would have made someone in the room squirm and say "that just isn't enough information--get me more"....

Quote: RonC

I said it in 2012 and I'll say it again now--no matter what any other President did in regards to these briefings, I think the current President is missing the point and missing the boat. The actual physical briefing is where the President and the other folks can question reports, toss ideas around, dig deeper, etc. It isn't that he can't read the information, I am sure that he does. It is that he doesn't interact with the information as much as is necessary at this point in our history.

The weak "Clapper screwed up" excuses ring hollow as these things happen--the buck stops in the Oval Office, not somewhere else. There may well be others at fault but it is up to the President to pick the right people, ask the right questions, and demand performance from those people.

As brilliant as he supposedly is, attention to what was going on may have led him to ask questions about things that didn't seem quite right when briefed to him. Perhaps the 2+2 of the report and the words of the briefer would have made someone in the room squirm and say "that just isn't enough information--get me more"....

We all have parts of a job we like and parts we dislike. Obama seems to dislike many parts of being POTUS, including foreign policy. He likes global warming treaties and some other diplomatic stuff, but he avoids anything unpleasant like the plague. It is almost as if he thinks if he either ignores problems or just makes a speech and "wants" them solved then nothing else need be done.

ISIS, Putin, and other non-friends of the USA don't care if he calls them racist-sexist-bigot-homophobe-whatevers. They require actual actions be done and decisions be made. Obama hates making decisions and taking a stand as he is very risk-adverse, for proof look at his "voting present" record. Foreign policy does not work that way. So it seems Obama avoids it, hoping it will go away.

I find it halarious that the Nobel Peace Prize winner is now bombing his sixth country. Same that the Code Pink and other peacenicks are totally silent. Shows what a joke it all was.

If I was POTUS I'd live for the daily brief and cut out all the photo-ops. Thus our pop-culture-rotted society would hate me.

Quote: AZDuffman

Thus our pop-culture-rotted society would hate me.

I wonder if our greatest asset, our democracy, will be our downfall.

I'm trying to think of an analog for it and I keep coming up short. What other thing allows everyone to have a voice, and is ALSO great. I know most businesses take the "voice" into account (it must, as it needs it's customers), but in the end, it someone ruling with an iron fist making the final decisions.

"Give the power to the people", we say. Yet these same people are ones who I wouldn't trust to mow my lawn. Lol, life's funny like that, I guess.

But whatever. I'm with you in expecting the fall. Hell, I'm counting on it. I need a little upheaval to assist me in my own plans for a coup d'état.

I don't think POTUS understands that part of his job is to make people in his administration do the work he needs done--that is, as an executive and leader, he needs to give them well-defined tasks and expect results...or else. Instead of hearing about how tough of a boss he is (and he should be one of the toughest, the job is that important), we hear about reporters not being allowed to ask people in the crowd for one his wife's events questions.

Why? That is fluff news. This administration thrives on fluff news that doesn't really mean much to the average person (though telling reporters who they can talk to is clearly a stretch of the Constitution, how many care as much as they should about that). They limit appearances, limit tough questions, evade answering, and do everything they can to keep people from seeing that they really are doing a poor job.

Quote: RonC

I said it in 2012 and I'll say it again now--no matter what any other President did in regards to these briefings, I think the current President is missing the point and missing the boat. The actual physical briefing is where the President and the other folks can question reports, toss ideas around, dig deeper, etc. It isn't that he can't read the information, I am sure that he does. It is that he doesn't interact with the information as much as is necessary at this point in our history.

Do the Fox News people who are rolling with this idea actually know whether the President missed vital evidence on the briefings he read or the briefings he attended and asked questions? If they don't know it was the missed briefings, why are they rolling with the idea that it is due to briefings he didn't attend?

I don't know that I agree either that Presidents need their briefings micromanaged. If you think Reagan did fine, and Carter did horrible, then maybe you SHOULD look at the lack of correlation of your or Fox news idea about in-person briefings.

No evidence to back up a claim due to missed briefings.

Quote: rxwine

Do the Fox News people who are rolling with this idea actually know whether the President missed vital evidence on the briefings he read or the briefings he attended and asked questions? If they don't know it was the missed briefings, why are they rolling with the idea that it is due to briefings he didn't attend?

I don't know that I agree either that Presidents need their briefings micromanaged. If you think Reagan did fine, and Carter did horrible, then maybe you SHOULD look at the lack of correlation of your or Fox news idea about in-person briefings.

No evidence to back up a claim due to missed briefings.

First of all, it wasn't only Fox News that reported this in 2012 but you can rest assured that the news media as a whole ignores this kind of stuff. Where does that leave us? With an undisputed fact--the numbers of briefings that he has not personally attended--and opinions--that perhaps if he paid more attention and interacted with the folks giving the briefing every day, or nearly every day, he would have a better idea of what was going on in the world.

There is a world of difference between reading a document and actually having someone present the document, subjecting that person to questions about the document, having a conversation about the course of events, etc. If it is okay for you to have it appear that the President is disconnected from the intelligence briefings, so be it. I would prefer that he be engaged in the event on a daily basis and that he push those who work with him to continually provide better intelligence. If you have evidence showing that is the case, please present it.

What Carter and Reagan did over twenty years ago is not as important as what the recent history is--his immediate predecessor reportedly made a point of having the briefing as an important part of most every day. Maybe you don't like what that President did and all of that good stuff, but the example of being engaged is a good one. If the current POTUS is so much more worthy, then that same level of engagement would make him all that much better.

If you are a world leader and there is one event every day giving you the scoop from intelligence on things going on the world, shouldn't that be something important in your routine?

Quote: RonC

If it is okay for you to have it appear that the President is disconnected from the intelligence briefings, so be it.

What I would be concerned about is evidence of a President missing information that he clearly received, not specifically how he chooses to receive it everyday.

Generally, I'm all for dictating specific requirements to people at the head of anything, but leave them the freedom to choose their path since they are suppose to be in a leadership position. Unless that choice is a clear violation of something else or ethics.

Quote:

If you are a world leader and there is one event every day giving you the scoop from intelligence on things going on the world, shouldn't that be something important in your routine?

What routine works better for me, may not work for someone else. And vice versa.

Now once they point out specifics of all this and what was the result, I'm all ears again.

Quote: rxwine

What I would be concerned about is evidence of a President missing information that he clearly received, not specifically how he chooses to receive it everyday.

Generally, I'm all for dictating specific requirements to people at the head of anything, but leave them the freedom to choose their path since they are suppose to be in a leadership position. Unless that choice is a clear violation of something else or ethics.

Quote: rxwine

What routine works better for me, may not work for someone else. And vice versa.

Now once they point out specifics of all this and what was the result, I'm all ears again.

Okay. They totally missed the boat on ISIS/ISL...they called them the "JV" squad at one point...

"Obama said he “wasn’t specifically referring” to ISIS when he made the junior varsity reference during an interview with The New Yorker in January. But the magazine article and a transcript of the interview — which Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler obtained and wrote about earlier this month — shows that Obama was referring to ISIS when he said “if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/09/obama-fumbles-jv-team-question/

The President made that statement after doing whatever he did with the intelligence info he got. Since at that point either the intelligence was wrong or he lied to us (just as Bush didn't lie about WMD's, of course, because they had been used against the Kurds and others have been found since...but it is very politically correct to call over- or under-estimates lies when it comes to the other side...), what did he do to fix it? Attend more often? Demand more info? Ask more questions?

If anyone told the President that Isis was going run rampage over Iraq and the Iraq defenses were going crumble based on intelligence, they should certainly come forward and testify before congress how they figured it out and how the President ignored it when he was told, or however it was presented to him.

I have to believe the Republicans are actively seeking such a person and would give them immunity in the House. They would have that person testify yesterday, or earlier.

Quote: rxwine

If anyone told the President that Isis was going run rampage over Iraq and the Iraq defenses were going crumble based on intelligence, they should certainly come forward and testify before congress how they figured it out and how the President ignored it when he was told, or however it was presented to him.

I have to believe the Republicans are actively seeking such a person and would give them immunity in the House. They would have that person testify yesterday, or earlier.

Perhaps no one knew exactly what was going to happen--I'm not holding the President to task for not knowing everything about everything; that is impossible. My point is simply that he is not as engaged as he should be in the daily briefings, in my opinion, and that a potential result of that documented lack of engagement could well be the folks briefing him not being pressed for more and better answers by the President, the Vice President, and others during the briefings. It is the dialogue that is missing when you just read the document on the iPad.

It isn't like the White House said that he reads it on the iPad at 6 a.m. or whatever, shoots tons of questions out, and demands answers throughout the day until he is convinced no stone is unturned.

I don't expect you to hate on President Obama; that won't likely happen. I do expect you to be an honest enough person to say that it is troubling for him to be seemingly disengaged on this issue. I've been critical of every President, not just the Democrats...because they all have faults!!