http://townhall.com/columnists/derekh****r/2014/10/02/the-ghost-in-the-white-house-n1899510/page/fullThe Ghost In The White HouseThere is a ghost in the White House, a spirit disconnected from this world, whisking from room to room, past staff, uninterested in their conversations. Unfortunately for us, the ghost is the president of the United States.
Barack Obama loves being president the perks, the privilege, the pomp and circumstance. Its the job that bores him. Unlike community organizing, the Illinois State Senate, or even the U.S. Senate, theres only one president. They cant just show up when they want or bleed into the background when theyd rather be doing other things.
President Obama loves the campaign trail. He performs a substance-free partisan attack speech written by snarky young staffers better than any recent occupant of the Oval Office. But those speechwriters arent serious people. Theyre smartasses better suited for Twitter, not the seat of power. As such, when it comes to serious issues of foreign policy, the speeches give us nothing but vacant platitudes when what we need is serious thoughtfulness.
Ask yourself this: Have you heard Barack Obama deliver a serious, substantive foreign policy speech? Not a recap of what is already known, but a practical speech laying out principles, practical goals and the means by which to achieve them? Obamas ISIS strategy speech last month was devoid of anything, even inspiring words, beyond what anyone whod read a couple of Associated Press stories on the subject couldve written.
A president knowledgeable and interested in the job and the subject would recognize this and demand others, maybe adults, craft a speech designed to inform and rally the American people to his side. Obamas failure to do so shows either he doesnt know or he doesnt care.
Not knowing or not caring was on full display on Sunday when President Obama sat down with Steve Croft of 60 Minutes. When he was asked how ISIS managed to control so much without his knowing, and was it a surprise to him, Obama gave a very Obama answer.
Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria, he said.
Barack Obama didnt fail; James Clapper and the intelligence community did.
But James Clapper didnt call ISIS the jayvee team just nine months ago; Barack Obama did. That was the president acknowledging the existence of ISIS and the fact that theyd just captured the major Iraqi city of Fallujah. Between then and September, did President Obama not receive any follow-up briefings on their progress? Did he ask no questions on their advances and barbarism? Was he not informed they held westerners, including Americans, hostage?
We know thats not true, because after the beheading of journalist James Foley, the White House leaked that Obama had authorized a rescue attempt, after dithering for months.
So what kind of surprise could ISIS have been to the president if in July hed sent the military into Syria because they were threatening Americans? None, really.
On Monday, Jon Karl of ABC News asked about how Obama could have been surprised by ISIS when so many intelligence officers had made public statements about their growth and spread starting last November. He asked, So these warnings that came, to the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, to Iraq, he made similar warnings on the news, DHS officials, did the president hear this, did he know? You mentioned Clapper, so we know he listened to Clapper, the head of the DNI. Did he know what these other top officials in his own administration were saying about the threat from ISIL, did he hear what I just read to you?
Josh Earnest, White House press secretary, responded, I assume what you read to me was congressional testimony. There are a lot of public statements about this. I'm not going to get into what sort of private conversations the president had with his, with the intelligence community.
So there were plenty of warnings, plenty of people in the intelligence community funneling information to the White House, and either the president knew and didnt care, or he didnt care to know.
The only other alternative is this information was not included in the Presidents Daily Brief and James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, willfully withheld this important information from the president of the United States. In which case he should be fired immediately.
That not having happened, it leaves us only with the aforementioned either/or situation.
Its been reported that Barack Obama had all this information and more in his Daily Brief for 18 months, including options for wiping out the leadership of both ISIS and the Khorasan groupall of which were rejected out of hand. That leaves only the orthat he doesnt care. A case bolstered by his attending only 42 percent of his daily security briefings.
The ghost in the Oval Office will occupy that space until January 2017, but his failures as a leader and disinterest in leadership will haunt this country long after he departs.