The Empty Chair: Obama Skipping Most Of His Daily Intelligence Briefings
Who knew that Clint Eastwood’s address to the Republican National Convention would end up being so apt?
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, a new conservative investigative research organization, 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.
The Obama administration has always seemed…something less than fully engaged on foreign policy. This, though, seems inexcusable.
President Obama, through the policies he’s backed, wants to micro-manage our daily lives from what we drive to what we eat to how we get our health care. Yet he can’t spare time from this minutiae to attend to his duties as commander-in-chief?
That speaks to a leader with some very low priorities.
Tags: Barack Obama
