Posted on 09/30/2014 9:09:33 AM PDT by walford
The tire tracks from the bus Barack Obama drove over the U.S. intelligence community continue leading to trouble for a president seen as trying to save his own political skin.
When Obama told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the rapid rise and spread of ISIS could be blamed on intelligence failure, that set off a firestorm of angry reaction. Intelligence officials adamantly defend their expertise and actions, arguing that the blame is not theirs, but the president’s for failure to act on their repeated warnings.
The Washington Times reports that the White House has been given detailed briefings on the activities of the Islamic State and their relentless spread of terror for well over a year.
U.S. policy leaders, including President Obama, were repeatedly warned for more than a year by the U.S. intelligence community that the Islamic State terror group was gaining significant strength in Syria and was on the verge of seizing territory deep inside Iraq, where the military was struggling to respond.
The private assessments, which were confirmed to The Washington Times on Monday, conflict with Mr. Obama’s claim on national television over the weekend that America’s spies had underestimated the rise and capabilities of the Islamic State and had overestimated the Iraqi military’s ability and will to fight the group.
And a new study offers a reason for Obama’s lack of awareness about the emergence of ISIS — he wasn’t paying attention…he was disinterested and detached. President Obama, says this damning report, has skipped over half his daily intelligence briefings.
Via breitbart.com:
A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.
The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.
In a revealing analysis on americanthinker.com, Thomas Lifson argues that Obama’s apparent attempt to shift blame from his own inaction to the inadequacies of his intelligence experts will backfire and be a “disaster” for his presidency.
Obama has now handed his political opponents a big issue. He has failed in his duty to protect America.
Once the impression is created that Obama is irresponsible in his duty to protect us, it will be very hard indeed for him to escape a degree of scorn, particularly if the threat from ISIS and domestic terrorists (including lone wolves who may not be done with beheadings) continues to produce dramatic images.
LOL. Can't disagree with that. 
That would be overt racism.
“Will no one consider the actual reason Obama appears to be ‘disinterested and detached’?
Obama created and enabled ISIS, he is in the process of empowering a global Caliphate and ‘stopping them’ is not his goal. From Egypt to Syria - Obama’s Arab Spring was intended to empower Jihadist Islam over the secular dictators in the middle east.”
And when he and his minions do know something that points out the increasing danger in the world under Obama’s watch, their efforts are expended on covering up when they can and casting blame outward when they cannot.
National security isn’t even a factor in their thinking.
Apparently the PDB is actually a document, so it is something the president is supposed to read rather than attend. It's not clear how it could be known precisely how many of them Obama read.
Remember when W was being pilloried for us having found absolutely(?) NO WMD in Iraq.
The consensus of ‘common sense’ figure Bush was correct.
There WERE WMD in Iraq.
Proof being that “IF we didn’t think they were there, we would definitely have ‘found’ some”.
Do you really think affirmative-action Clown Prince nobama can read?
Or, the absence of a foreign policy.
No one is more outraged at the increase of Muslim aggression than the President. /s
Now that's unfair. Just take a look at his college transcripts and you'll see that... Oh, wait a minute, no one can look at his college transcripts. Never mind.
Well, that was an apt summary, good show!
I heard on the radio this morning that 60% of the time he neither attends his intel briefings nor reads the material they bring. I wish I could recall who said so.
‘Apparently the PDB is actually a document’
No, it’s an actual briefing. He’s supposed to listen to it, ask questions, and direct the briefers to get him more info on areas he deems a threat/important. Obama skips the briefings [most of the time] but claims he reads the report. There is no evidence that he does. If he had, he wouldn’t be blathering about how everyone was blindsided by ISIS. *He* is the one who was blindsided, because he skipped his briefings.
The intel and journalists always act surprized by this.
I call BS. We know zero is a communist and would blame the very intel agencies confronting hin with his dereliction in typical spin attack on key political opposition or protests of his own.
Indeed. They always interprete the NSA data wrong. These datas should be discussed in public or removed.
And Obama acts like a typical pedophile, ready to discredit his victims ahead of time with a plan and a spin.
Briefings usually consist of two parts. An oral presentation highlights the key elements. The document provides more detailed information and background. One important aspect of any briefing is that the person getting briefed has the opportunity to ask questions of the person doing the presentation.
By skipping any in-person, oral briefing, Obama ensures that nobody can ever testify that he was TOLD about any particular threat. It creates instant plausible deniability for Obama.
No, it’s an actual briefing.
"The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a Top Secret document produced each morning for the President of the United States." - Wikipedia
Apparently over 40% of the time, someone also speaks to Obama in person. If the intelligence community saw ISIS as a very great threat, one would think that they would have frequently brought it up in writing and in these meetings. Wikipedia mentions that other high officials also get the PDB.
” *He* is the one who was blindsided, because he skipped his briefings.”
The President is going backed to the failed Leftist/Democrat way of handling terrorism — waiting until “imminent threats” and treating it as a law enforcement issue rather than war.
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