l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 "By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his
daily intelligence meeting"
by Rick aka Mr. Brutally Honest
A revealing piece over the Washington Post by Marc Thiessen needs to get
much wider play:
President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign
trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not
necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It
turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not
attend his daily intelligence meeting.
The Government Accountability Institute examined President Obama’s
schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often
he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is
briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During
his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or
43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his
attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By
contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily
intelligence meeting.
I asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor about the
findings, and whether there were any instances where the president attended
the intelligence meeting that were not on his public schedule. 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.” He says that the president read
his PDB every day, and he disagreed with the suggestion that there is any
difference whatsoever between simply reading the briefing book and having an
interactive discussion of its contents with top national security and
intelligence officials where the president can probe assumptions and ask
questions. “I actually don’t agree at all,” Vietor told me in an e-mail,
“The president gets the information he needs from the intelligence
community each day.”
Yet Vietor also directed me to a Post story written this year in which
Obama officials discuss the importance of the intelligence meeting and extol
how brilliantly the president runs it. “Obama reads the PDB ahead of time
and comes to the morning meeting with questions. Intelligence briefers are
there to answer those questions, expand on a point or raise a new issue,”
The Post reported. “One regular participant in the roughly 500 Oval Office
sessions during Obama’s presidency said the meetings show a president
consistently participating in an exploration of foreign policy and
intelligence issues.”
You might recall this paragraph from a post published less than a week ago
that juxtaposed with the one today is eye-opening:
2. How he spends extraordinary amounts of time and energy to compete in
— trivialities.
For someone dealing with the world’s weightiest matters, Mr. Obama
spends surprising energy perfecting even less consequential pursuits. He has
played golf 104 times since becoming president, according to Mark Knoller
of CBS News, who monitors his outings, and he asks superior players for tips
that have helped lower his scores. He decompresses with card games on Air
Force One, but players who do not concentrate risk a reprimand (“You’re
not playing, you’re just gambling,” he once told Arun Chaudhary, his
former videographer).
His idea of birthday relaxation is competing in an Olympic-style
athletic tournament with friends, keeping close score. The 2009 version
ended with a bowling event. Guess who won, despite his history of
embarrassingly low scores? The president, it turned out, had been practicing
in the WhiteHouse alley.
Will the American people see what this guy really is in time?
It's encouraging that the first piece is in the WaPo but... will it persuade?
Lord, I truly hope so. | S*********g
发帖数: 24893 | 2 布什天天满怀希望去开会，希望终于在伊拉克找到wmd了。
campaign
not
It
【在 l****z 的大作中提到】
: "By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his
: daily intelligence meeting"
: by Rick aka Mr. Brutally Honest
: A revealing piece over the Washington Post by Marc Thiessen needs to get
: much wider play:
: President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign
: trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not
: necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It
: turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not
: attend his daily intelligence meeting.
| y***r
发帖数: 16594 | 3 So what?
说明布什这个总统天天就等着找机会打仗？ |
|
