It’s Hard to Keep Up With ISIS When the President Plays Hooky From Intelligence Briefings

“Either the president doesn’t
read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,” a former
Pentagon official
said of President Obama after the gormless chief executive
tried to
pass the buck to the intelligence community for underestimating
ISIS. But the president likely isn’t full of shit—he’s playing
hooky from his intelligence briefings. According to the latest
report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute,
President Obama
has an overall 42.09 percent attendance rate at his Presidential
Daily Briefs. This year (marking the rise of a certain
troubling organization/new shithole country) the rate has been 37.5
percent.

President Obama’s low attendance at his briefings raised
eyebrows in the past. In the Washington Post, Marc
Thiessen raised “where in the world is Barry”
questions about the president’s absence in 2012. By contrast,
noted Thiessen, President George W. Bush “held his intelligence
meeting six days a week, no exceptions.”

The White House responded that the president reads his briefs on
his tablet whether or not he attends the meetings, so that he stays
up to speed on the big issues. The intelligence community doesn’t
seem convinced, though, as indicated by the “bulllshitting”
comment. Maybe skimming a document isn’t the equivalent of
listening to experts emphasize the highlights.

Of course, being informed about what’s going on is different
than using the information effectively. The second President Bush
reportedly
had a month’s notice that Osama Bin Laden planned to hijack
airplanes, but that didn’t prevent 9/11. Good information and good
judgment don’t necessarily go hand in hand, and this president,
like the last, has plenty of lousy decisionmaking to share across
the policy spectrum.

Being informed doesn’t necessarily imply a specific response,
either. Knowing about ISIS does not inevitably lead to a decision
to wage all out war in the Middle East, as the hawkish likes of

John McCain imply. 

But if it’s true that the briefings contained warnings about
ISIS that just got missed because the president didn’t make it to
class or do his homework, throwing the bearers of ignored news
under the bus is an exercise in lousy judgment.