When an article appears in the Washington Post, or appears anywhere and is written by a Post reporter, it should have credibility. It has, for me That is, I may disagree with the POV, but surely the facts are right even if, as can happen, some facts to a story may be omitted or misconstrued. About Marc Thiessen, who broke the story about Obama not attending more than half of his intel briefings, he was a speechwriter for GWB. That fact, of course, raises suspicion in my mind. I do not trust partisans whether they are Democrats or Republicans because they all lie. They all present one-sided views of events. Still, in a paper that is supposed to stand for the best quality journalism in the country which has highly skilled editors, would Thiessen's article have appeared in print unless it had been fact checked at the source? As of today I do not know. There is a new WaPo story which challenges Thiessen's article -even if Thiessen has a new defense also just published which is presented here following the new story in the Post. It now looks like: (1) Thiessen is formally correct, BHO has missed half of his intel briefings, but (2) this information is misleading inasmuch as BHO generally reads the reports even when he does not meet with anyone from CIA or other agencies. My question is simply this: Why didn't critical (in the sense of scholarship, research, etc) comments appear at the same time as the original article so that everyone would have complete confidence in the value of the story? It was and is an important story but it sure in hell raises all kinds of questions that were not evident at first. This goes to the point about editors needing to do their job well and actually edit when editing is called for. If a story is headline newsworthy it deserves to be looked at by not only by an immediate editor, but possibly two or three editors Not that many stories rise to the level of the Declaration of Independence, but that is a useful example because it is impossible to forget. Jefferson wrote the Declaration, so we all "know." Which he did -except that the final version was edited by Ben Franklin and others and the words in the document, while still about 80% Jefferson's, are 1/5th someone else's words. Which is to say, especially if you compare the original with the final version, the final edited Declaration is much better because of the editing. There is a lesson here for the future Chicago Bugle. Unless there is prior agreement to some other effect, any article in the paper will be edited as needed at the discretion of the editors -who will always strive to be well inforrned and objective. There is also a lesson here in terms of Thiessen's story as carried in the press and which has now gone viral in the blogosphere. Yes, it uncovers some of the reasons for Obama's foreign policy mistakes like Benghazi and not seeing the rise of ISIL in Syria and Iraq despite plenty of intelligence that, had it been studied and reflected upon, could have averted those fiascos. But it does no-one the least good to exaggerate matters to make politically partisan points, which is what the original Thiessen story did. A more objective story would have said that Obama's record in terms of intel briefings is not at all good although he does at least read the reports, or usually does. While this has less "bite" that the first version of the story it would have had the advantage of being immune from the criticisms now being made about it. Billy =============== also commented on at Fact Checker W Post The bogus claim that Obama ‘skips’ his intelligence briefings Posted by _Glenn Kessler_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/glenn-kessler/2011/03/02/ABzNymP_page.html) at 06:02 AM ET, 09/24/2012 TheWashingtonPost
— anti-Obama ad by American Crossroads This is a hard-hitting ad by the right-leaning group _American Crossroads_ (http://www.americancrossroads.org/) , suggesting President Obama is shirking his duties by concentrating on campaigning, golf and celebrity appearances. We’re going to concentrate on the first allegation — that Obama has skipped half of his intelligence briefings — since that raises interesting questions about presidential style and management. (There is no dispute that Obama plays much more golf than, say, George W. Bush — who stopped playing seven months into the Iraq war. But _we also have noted_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obama-bowing-to-foreign-dictators--and-his-golf-game/2011/12/08/gIQAvANkfO_blog.html) that Bush took significantly more vacation days than Obama has taken.) The Facts The notion that Obama has skipped his intelligence briefings was promoted by a right-leaning research group called the Government Accountability Institute, which published _a report_ (http://g-a-i.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/GAI-Report-Presidential-Daily-Brief-A-Time-Based-Analysis-FINAL-DOC.pdf) detailing that the president’s daily calendar shows Obama receiving an in-person briefing on the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) 43.8 percent of his time in office. (The percentage dropped from a high of 48.8 percent in 2010 to 38.2 percent through May of 2012.) Marc Thiessen, a former Bush speechwriter who writes an opinion column for The Washington Post, then drew attention to what he called the “startling new statistics” in the report. _His column on the subject_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-obama-skipping-more-than-half-of-his-daily- intelligence-meetings/2012/09/10/6624afe8-fb49-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html ) is cited as the source in the American Crossroads ad. That column also includes the White House’s response — that Obama reads his PDB every day, but he does not always require an in-person briefing every day. The White House argument is that this is how Obama structured his White House operation, so it is specious to say he has “skipped” a meeting that was not actually scheduled. The PDB is a highly secret document seen only by the president and a handful of other advisers. Only a few have ever been declassified — mainly _from the_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb19650807.pdf) _Lyndon Johnson_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb19680401.pdf) era — though _the famous Aug. 6, 2001, PDB_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf) warning “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” was also declassified as part of the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Our colleague Walter Pincus earlier this year _examined_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/measuring-a-presidents-approach-on-forei gn-policy/2012/01/14/gIQANYv13P_print.html) how Obama has handled his morning foreign-policy discussions: 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. [National Intelligence Director James] Clapper may be present once or twice a week, but most often one of his deputies is in attendance in case an intelligence community issue arises. When Pincus refers to the “morning meeting,” he is describing a regular national security meeting that is held every day at 9:30 a.m. with the president’s top advisers. In his article, he cites a meeting that took place on Jan. 13, 2012, that included discussion of the PDB with one of Clapper’s deputies. Yet the White House _public schedule for that day_ (http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-01-13) lists no such meeting — and no PDB meeting. So the entire controversy appears based on a semantic distinction — or perhaps inaccurate White House schedules. _Thomas S. Blanton_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/arc_staff.html) , director of the _National Security Archive_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html) at George Washington University, says that there have been “lots of variation in the briefing patterns” among presidents, with different consequences. George W. Bush “wanted personal and oral, and that matched CIA’s institutional interest in face to face with the president, much better for their bureaucratic politics, but unclear how good it was for presidential decision making,” he said. “On Iraq WMD [weapons of mass destruction], the direct brief was clearly pernicious; reading might have pointed to the dissents, but the briefers did not.” In contrast, Bill “Clinton the reader was known to comment that his morning papers were better than the intel brief, and better written — to the point that the CIA director James Woolsey joked that when that Cessna crashed into the White House, that was him seeking an audience with the president.” Richard Nixon also had few, if any, oral briefings and instead received his intelligence from the morning memo of his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. According to a _CIA history of the PDB written by John L. Helgerson_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/cia/Chapter%204%20--%20Nixon%20and% 20Ford%20Uneven%20Access.htm) : Throughout the Nixon presidency, the PDB was delivered by courier to Kissinger’s office. Each day Kissinger delivered to the President a package of material that included the PDB along with material from the State Department, the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs, and others. Nixon would keep the material on his desk, reading it at his convenience throughout the day. Feedback to the Agency typically was provided by Kissinger directly to the DCI. Interestingly, the history says that Gerald Ford, who became president when Nixon resigned, decided to add an oral briefing from a CIA official as his first meeting of the morning so he would be better prepared for foreign-policy discussions with Kissinger, who had become Secretary of State. Jimmy Carter scrapped the oral briefing and instead relied on a one-on-one meeting with his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. But he wrote frequent comments on the PDB, so that “the CIA received considerably more feedback from Carter than it had from Ford,” _the history said_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/cia/Chapter%205%20--%20In-Depth%20Discu ssions%20With%20Carter.htm) . Ronald Reagan, meanwhile, also almost never received oral briefings or had meetings with CIA personnel. Here is how the CIA history_ puts it_ (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/cia/Chapter%206%20--%20Reagan%20and%20 Bush%20A%20Study%20in%20Contrasts.htm) : Agency officers who provided daily intelligence support to the White House during the Reagan administration remember that his several national security advisers varied markedly in the time and attention they devoted to the PDB. In all cases, however, they received the Agency’s briefer every day, read the PDB, and ensured that it was forwarded to the President. Thinking back over the eight years of the two Reagan administrations, the Agency’s briefing officer remembered only one or two occasions when the National Security Adviser took him into the Oval Office to brief the President directly. Unlike Carter, Reagan almost never wrote comments or questions on the PDB. Then, George H.W. Bush, who had once served as CIA director, reinstituted an oral briefing, read the PDB closely and even examined raw intelligence reports. “CIA’s relationship with Bush was undoubtedly the most productive it had enjoyed with any of the nine presidents it served since the Agency’s founding in 1947,” concluded the history, which was written in 1996. The Pinocchio Test Clearly, different presidents have structured their daily briefing from the CIA to fit their unique personal styles. Many did not have an oral briefing, while three — two of whom are named Bush — preferred to deal directly with a CIA official. Obama appears to have opted for a melding of the two approaches, in which he receives oral briefings, but not as frequently as his predecessor. Ultimately, what matters is what a president does with the information he receives from the CIA. Republican critics may find fault with Obama’s handling of foreign policy. But this attack ad turns a question of process — how does the president handle his intelligence brief? — into a misguided attack because Obama has chosen to receive his information in a different manner than his predecessor. As it turns out, no president does it the exact same way. Under the standards of this ad, Republican icon Ronald Reagan skipped his intelligence briefings 99 percent of the time. Three Pinocchios UPDATE: Marc Thiessen has posted _a response to this column_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-bogus-defense-of-obamas-intelligence-briefing-rec ord/2012/09/25/f5ae10de-071d-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html) , in which he argues that practices before the September 11 attacks should not be considered. It is an interesting, if not very factual argument. (Reagan, for instance, suffered the loss of 241 servicemen in Beirut as a _result of a terror act_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing) .) We also find it curious that he now discloses the study was done at his request, by _his business partner_ (http://www.ovalofficewriters.com/team) , and that he now describes the Government Accountability Institute as “nonpartisan ” whereas in _his earlier column_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-obama-skipping-more-than-half-of-his-daily-intelligence-meetings/2012/0 9/10/6624afe8-fb49-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html) he had called it a “ conservative investigative research organization.” Upon reflection, we now realize that the GAI report has a bit of an inconsistency problem. Thiessen had earlier claimed Bush had oral intel briefings six days a week--though no actual schedule is available to confirm that--so at the very least GAI should have subtracted one a day week from Obama’s numbers to make a valid comparison. (The White House schedule does not list briefings on weekends but Peter Schweizer, president of GAI and Thiessen’s business partner, says the study also relied on Politico’s _White House calendar,_ (http://www.politico.com/politico44/) which does list some weekend meetings. Schweizer says the report is “about Obama and his scehdule.”) We had nearly given this data Four Pinocchios and in retrospect we were perhaps too generous with Three. =============================== Newsmax White House Admits Obama Skips Most Intelligence Briefings Tuesday, 11 Sep 2012 01:26 PM By Martin Gould President Barack Obama has missed more than half of his daily intelligence briefings since he came into power, a new report shows. Obama has been to less than 44 percent of the vital meetings, the White House admits, with his attendance reaching a low spot towards the end of 2011 and the start of this year. His predecessor, George W, Bush made a point of having the meetings six days a week, and attending as many as possible, the American Enterprise Institute fellow_._ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-obama-skipping-more-than-half-%20of-his-daily-intelligence-meetings/2012/09/10/6624afe8-fb4 9-11e1-b153-218509%20a954e1_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop) Obama’s attendance figures were prepared by the conservative Government Accountability Institute, and were not disputed by the White House. At one point he was attending fewer than two meetings out of five. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Thiessen that Obama’s attendance at the meetings was “not particularly interesting or useful,” as he received written daily briefings. “The president gets the information he needs from the intelligence community every day,” Vietor said. However, in January, the Post published an article, in which security officials stressed the importance of the daily meetings. “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,” that piece said. Thiessen’s Op-Ed says that the president’s personal attendance at the briefings “is enormously important both for the president and those who prepare the brief.” “For the president, the meeting is an opportunity to ask questions of the briefers, probe assumptions and request additional information,” Thiessen writes. “For those preparing the brief, meeting with the president on a daily basis gives them vital, direct feedback from the commander in chief about what is on his mind, how they can be more responsive to his needs, and what information he may have to feed back into the intelligence process.” Thiessen adds, “This process cannot be replicated on paper.” -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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