With about a month to go before the elections, let's loosen up our lever-pulling arms by inviting NewsBusters readers to vote on the lamest excuse offered by three Morning Joe panelists today for President Obama's failure to heed the intelligence about the threat ISIS posed. H/t NB reader Ray R. 1. Columbia prof Dorian Warren: congressional intelligence committees are to blame for not raising the issues with President Obama. 2. Mike Barnicle: James Clapper is to blame for not assembling the intelligence to the point that it got the president's full attention. 3. Eugene Robinson: not fair to blame the president considering there could have been 15 things in the intel briefing that day deserving urgent atention. 4. Bo the dog ate President Obama's intel briefing. OK, scratch that one; I made it up.
Before voting, I'd urge you to view the video here to gauge the inane defenses in all their vacuous glory. Check back soon for the transcript.
Note: use of photo of Gene Robinson not intended to sway voters. All candidates are well worthy of your consideration!
JOE SCARBOROUGH: The president really messed up the other night on "60 Minutes." He should have said he screwed up. Everybody knows he screwed up. You have the intelligence community that was actually saying we're really in danger of seeing ISIS take over large swathes of Syria and Iraq. That's written down. It's all written down chapter and verse. They warned him. He didn't heed the warnings and then he blamed the intelligence community. I don't think there's anything for the White House to do but to say we screwed up.
DORIAN WARREN: You don't want this kind of infighting amongst agencies at this point while we're in a conflict. But Joe, I'd ask you, you're the expert at this: doesn't congress also have a responsibility here in terms of the intelligence committees who get briefed as well to raise these questions to the president about what the strategy is?
MIKE BARNICLE: The president put himself right in the middle of this question Sunday night, is Jim Clapper. He lied to congress a year and a half ago in testimony. He has clearly been unable to assemble the intelligence to the point it gets the president's full attention.
EUGENE ROBINSON: Congressman, this is Gene Robinson. As you said you don't get to read the presidential daily brief and I don't get to read it either. But what we understand about it is that everything is in there. That there are threats that would set your hair on fire that actually never do come true but there's lots of things that the president has to pay attention to in there. Is it fair, you know, and again we haven't seen the documents, but is it fair to point the finger at the president for something that may have been in the brief along with a list of 15 things that day that seemed to deserve urgent attention?
