Our TV news elite often tries to ignore or play down moments that make Team Obama look incompetent or ill-informed. Case in point: on ABC December 21, World News anchor Diane Sawyer pressed Jim Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, about terror arrests in London, and he seemed unaware, and he then apologized to Sawyer he was unaware.
ABC briefly followed up on that story the next night, but there was no mention of Clapper's gaffe on CBS, or NBC, or NPR. The PBS NewsHour gave it a brief mention. CNN put it in heavy rotation on the 22nd (which makes the other networks' omission more glaring). John Roberts reported "Sawyer's staff gave Clapper 24 hours to provide a follow-up explanation. He put out a statement, quote, 'The question about the specific news development was ambiguous. The DNI's knowledge of the threat streams in Europe is profound and multi- dimensional, and any suggestion otherwise is inaccurate.'"
On MSNBC that night, even Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow slammed Clapper for not being fully briefed. Matthews did praise White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan for his lame spin on Clapper's behalf:
BRENNAN: Should he have been briefed by his staff on those arrests? Yes. And I know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests and it was constantly on the news networks. I`m glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what`s coming out of the media.
MATTHEWS: Wow. I think John Brennan is one hell of a colleague, don`t you? Talk about having your back? I still say send your old television sets to -- to Mr. Clapper. He needs a TV to watch.
Maddow unloaded her idea of a rude rebuke: she compared Clapper to Fox News anchor Steve Doocy:
The guy who, clearly, has no idea about all the arrests in London this week for serious terrorism allegations is our nation's Director of National Intelligence. No idea. Staff didn`t brief him, apparently, nor did Nightly News, which reported it on Monday night. Nor did ABC's Good Morning America, which reported it on that morning. Nor did the CBS Evening News, not to be confused with whatever the show is on CBS that's in the morning.
The man in the job that was created after 9/11 so one person would be in charge of coordinating all intelligence for the whole U.S. government had less intelligence on the big terrorism story in the world this week than Steve Doocy did and all of his friends at Fox and Friends.
Maddow then interviewed NBC's Richard Engel about her concerns.
