The Five went to town yesterday accusing President Obama of intentionally ignoring national security warnings about ISIS. Greg Gutfeld wins the prize for most odious, most obnoxious and most pernicious.
Gutfeld – who almost surely put the “ass” in “asinine” – announced:
You’ve read that he was warned three times. Think about this from a priority standpoint, that if he was warned about something else three times. Like vanishing sea ice. Or the suffering of Sandra Fluke. Or perhaps the treatment of a fellow professor. He would not ignore three warnings in any of those instances because some warnings matter more than others. When those warnings reflect the flaws of the United States, he acts but when it’s something that is external, for some reason, it’s just not a big deal.
Bob Beckel seemed to get more and more ticked off over the course of the 13:20 discussion. Finally, near the end, he said in response to some other remark, “That is an outrageous comment…” and got bleeped.
Do you think he brought up the Presidential Daily Briefing President George W. Bush received on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US?” Or the ones before it?
From The New York Times:
The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
Let’s see, President Obama didn’t pay close enough attention to warnings about the dangers posed by a group in the Middle East that does not seem to pose an immediate threat to the U.S. whereas President Bush ignored warnings of a possibly “imminent” terrorist attack on U.S. soil because he thought Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a bigger threat. And then later invaded Iraq because he wrongly accused them of having weapons of mass destruction. Maybe Beckel called out Fox on presenting Obama as the screw up and Bush the visionary.
Or do you think Beckel pointed out that then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said (with sentiments echoed by then- Secretary of State Colin Powell and VP Dick Cheney), “No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon … into the World Trade Center, using planes as missiles.” Despite the fact that American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could “seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark?”
Nah, I’m going to guess that Beckel didn’t bring any of that up.
Watch the naked exploitation of national security for partisan gain below.
(H/T Mediaite)
Fox News hatred for her will intensify as she is running for the California State Senate in the 26th district where she’ll be opposed by another Democrat, Ben Allen in next month’s election. If she’s victorious she could possibly be the nominee for the US Senate seat when Barbara Boxer and/or Diane Feinstein retire. Then watch their little heads explode.