Obama is famous — or notorious — for his high opinion of his own capabilities. He was quoted as saying
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
So, as Mark Theissen points out, it’s probably not a surprise that he also doesn’t figure he needs intelligence briefings, preferring instead to read the Presidential Daily Brief.
Well, I was involved in the Intelligence Community for a good while. I was more involved in collection and then computer security than analysis, but I know analysts. Here’s how the business is done:
People out at the collection end collect raw intelligence (never you mind how) and transmit it to CIA, where the main analysis shop is. This being the government, it’s not really that simple — there are independent analysis shops at State and in DoD, and some of the analysis, especially heavily technical analysis, is partly done at the front end, but for simplicity, we’ll say it goes to CIA. There, it’s stored — you can think of it as if each little piece is copied to a 5×8 card, which is really how it was done at the dawn of time — with various techniques available to sort it and sift it. At that point, an analyst — someone with a degree in something like history or political science or even psychology — looks at the new stuff, sorts through it, and summarizes it. Basically, they write a term paper every day. These term papers are further summarized by an area specialist, summartied again, and eventually make it to a document (or data base) called a National intelligence Estimate. That is in turn summarized into a document called the Presidential Daily Brief, which is the document that Obama claims to read in the morning. These used to be in the hands of the Director of Central Intelligence, who was the President’s direct line to the Intelligence Community. Now it’s the Director of National Intelligence, as the Congress in its infinite wisdom decided that the solution to a politicized and fragile system was to put another layer of management over it in another agency. So now the Director of the CIA is sending this stuff to the DNI, who is responsible to the President.
Now, I’ve never seen a PDB or NIE except in declassified form, but George Washington University has some examples online. Have a look at them: they are a page or two of bullet points on each topic, and I can tell you what that means is this torrent, this firehose of information, has been summarized in a way which guarantees:
that it mentions a lot of possibilities;
that it says nothing that can be certainly disproven, and;
that everything it says matches exactly what the DNI thinks is politically advantageous to the DNI.
What the PDB is supposed to be is basically a powerpoint of the important things that have happened; they send along a briefer, who is a top-level analyst who spends all day every day becoming an expert in the topics covered, and then if something exciting is happening, they may bring an area expert who is an even more rigorous expert in a more narrowly constrained topic. These experts can answer questions, and take new direction on areas of interest; they’re there to be the President’s (and the National Security Councils’) brains. As you can see from the examples I linked, the PDB itself is basically a USA Today level of detail at best. The briefer expands that and works with the President’s staff to make sure the details are getting through.
What Mark Thiessen is telling us is that Obama prefers to read the USA Today summary instead of talking to an expert and asking questions.
What Mark Thiessen is telling us is that Obama prefers to read the USA Today summary instead of talking to an expert and asking questions.
I’m not necessarily outraged at that, assuming that if and when there’s an issue some department head will put in an interrupt at an appropriate level. I pray to Cthulhu that the security of the republic does not rest on the attentions of just the president to summary level stuff submitted on the daily schedule.
“I pray to Cthulhu that the security of the republic does not rest on the attentions of just the president to summary level stuff submitted on the daily schedule.”
Actually, that is exactly the case. The President is the chief defender of the country. He controls the State Dept., the Intel services, and the military. We have a strong central President, not like the weak Prime Ministers of other countries. It is the Prez’s job to get the info, and ask more questions, to get into the analysis a bit, so he can formulate policy.
Top execs gather info. They only make a couple key decisions per year, but those are far-reaching. They read and ask questions, and they make sure others are doing their jobs, taking care of the little things. It’s not the job of the juniors to make sure the Prez is doing his job. It’s his job to make sure they are doing theirs. Your thinking is backwards.
This is why Palin was so offended when Couric asked basically if she can even read. Her job was to get info. She spent her days doing little but. What papers does she read? All of them, because that is her job. Papers, briefings, meetings, talks with experts, it is all the exec’s job, and Palin was damned good at her job, because she had a good work ethic. She would rarely have skipped those briefings as President. Read her emails for a real eye-opener about an exec doing her job.
Obama skips the meetings, because he is basically shiftless.
Yes, he prefers to read the briefing which says exactly what the DNI, who has no actual power, wants it to say. Which means the president isn’t getting the information he needs.
Of course, this president thinks he knows more than everybody else anyway, so what does it actually matter?
What evidence exists that Obama even reads the daily briefings. Where would he possibly find the time to do so with all his golf outings, vacations, spending his evenings with his children, and going on campaign appearances. Only his staff, who have proven mendacious in the past, have said he reads them all.
Could he have picked up all the skills of a top flight intelligence expert and a foreign policy expert while learning to become a community agitator. Demanding concessions from banks under pressure of being called “racist” or violating laws the lib’s put into effect forcing banks to lend money to those who couldn’t afford to pay it back is much easier than confronting a vile and potential nuclear threat such as Iran poses.
We are know seeing a Arab “winter” as a result of his lack of diplomatic skills and a soon to be American “winter” as a result of his lack of job, economy, and wealth creating skills.
He needs to be fired, as he himself admitted in at least TV appearance.
Our Embassies are savagely attacked in 2 countries – 4 dead, including an Ambassador – Insufficient Security! – Obama Administration has knowledge of Demonstrations beforehand – Afterward Administration apologizes to Terrorist Killers! – Obama’s reaction is to campaign in Vegas with Beyonce for more Money………..MEDIA RESPONSE: “Hey, did you guys hear what Romney said?”……(incredibly pathetic!!!!)
Obama lacks the intelligence to sit thru an intelligence briefing. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. The most ignorant person believes he knows more than he does.
Usually wrong but never in doubt, that’s our Dear Leader.
Proverbs 16:18: Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
When has this truth been better illustrated than Obama is doing now?
There’s a Biden joke in there somewhere.
This is astounding in its insanity:
“So, as Mark Theissen points out, it’s probably not a surprise that he also doesn’t figure he needs intelligence briefings, preferring instead to read the Presidential Daily Brief.”
And yet he was caught unprepared and uniformed. “Oh, but he’s a genius. Just look at our economy and debt!”
Someone wake me up. I’ve had enough of this nightmare.
“we’ll say it goes to CIA… where it’s copied to a 5×8 card”
Well then, it’s clearly Bush’s fault for moving the Department of Defense to a 4×6 card system and the State Department and White House to a 3×5 card system. If we’re ever going to get a handle on things then we’ll need to spend vast amounts of money combining agencies to ensure that the information one agency has is immediately accessible by all agencies. It’s not Obama’s failure, it’s the system! Oh, and BTW, 9/11 is still Bush’s fault.
I’m guessing our main intelligence problem exists between the O’s rather large ears.
As a reading teacher, we know that most of the population reads at around a 6th grade level so newspapeers try to publish at that level to reach a wide base. I extrapolate from your article that Obama chooses to accept an intelligence briefing of USA Today level information. Oh my goodness. Why?
It’s probably all he can handle, intellect-wise.
As for the dummified Presidential Daily Brief, he apparently doesn’t even listen to THAT for days at a time, prefering to schmooze with celebrities like Beyonce….
Judy, have a look at the PDBs I linked. I don’t know that I think they’re Flesch 6, but they sure as hell aren’t going to challenge someone who went to Harvard.
You people are stupid. That is all. Own it.