http://www.aim.org/guest-column/dereliction-of-duty-obama-skipped-nearly-60-percent-of-intelligence-briefings/print/Dereliction of duty: Obama skipped nearly 60 percent of intelligence briefings
Posted By Lt. Col. (Retired) Allen West On October 3, 2014
It’s called dereliction of duty when one knowingly dismisses the faithful execution of his or her prescribed duties in fulfilling their responsibility. I said so Monday evening with Greta von Susteren [1], and will continue to do so.
And if anything represents “high crimes and misdemeanors” it’s the dereliction of duty that has resulted in the deaths of Americans – by beheadings. Furthermore, it is a dereliction of duty that has placed the national security of the United States of America at risk.
As reported by Breitbart.com, [2] “A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI)report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1 percent 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 percent of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3 percent in his second.”
This isn’t some right-wing conspiracy, this is a report that can be cross-verified. What would shareholders or a Board of Directors do to a CEO who had attended 42.1 percent of the company economic outlook briefings and while the company’s stock was plummeting? Yep, I believe the shareholders would demand the firing of the CEO.
So what are we waiting for here America? Obama only asks for his PDB to be left on his desk and there are hardly ever any follow up inquiries. “It’s pretty well-known that the president hasn’t taken in-person intelligence briefings with any regularity since the early days of 2009,” an Obama national security staffer told the Daily Mail on Monday. “He gets them in writing.”
Hmm, I wonder how many of those 2,079 days Obama played golf? Mind you, I’ve never held a golf club and don’t chide the man for his golf game – but, if there’s a higher likelihood of Obama playing golf than taking his intel briefs, I do have a problem – as well you should.
As ABC News reported, the White House has not previously directly disputed the GAI’s numbers but instead said Obama prefers to read his PDB on his iPad instead of receiving the all-important live, in-person briefings.
And if you want to know about dumb freakin’ luck get this. Breitbart says, “the GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” said Obama. According to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, members of the Defense establishment were “flabbergasted” by Obama’s attempt to shift blame.”
“Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullish!@ting,” a former senior Pentagon official “who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq” told the Daily Beast.
Folks, this is the clear and present definition of dereliction of duty. How much are the American people asking? Just for Obama to do his job and take a briefing and show some interest. I can bet Obama never missed an election poll result update by David Axelrod. I wonder how many Democrat fundraisers Obama missed in the past six years? I guess we know where his priorities lie, all to the detriment of the American people.
I’ll be the one who asks – and don’t care about the hysteria it creates – if Obama had taken his briefs, or even read them (I believe Valerie Jarrett is coaching him on the fine art of plausible deniability) – and full understood the threat of ISIS, would James Wright Foley and Steven Sotloff still be alive? We already reported here that Obama delayed for 30 days the special operations rescue mission to recover Wright and Sotloff – again, politics trumping practicality, and American security.
And just so you know, there have been previous investigations into Obama’s intel briefing attendance.
As Breitbart reports, “this is not the first time questions have been raised about Obama’s lack of engagement and interest in receiving in-person daily intelligence briefings. On September 10, 2012, the GAI released a similar report showing that Obama had attended less than half (43.8%) of his daily intelligence briefings up to that point. When Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen mentioned the GAI’s findings in his column, then-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dubbed the findings “hilarious.” The very next day, U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American staff members were murdered [I am writing "abandoned"] in Benghazi. As Breitbart News reported at the time, the White House’s very own presidential calendar revealed Obama had not received his daily intel briefing in the five consecutive days leading up to the Benghazi attacks.”
This is why I refer to Obama skipping out on his PDBs as dereliction of duty and representative of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” So I ask American shareholders – should we fire this CEO? Politics is more important to Obama than the security of the American people. That to me is highly disturbing.
