◼ link - Marc A. Thiessen/Washington Post
President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not attend his daily intelligence meeting.
The Government Accountability Institute, a new conservative investigative research organization, examined President Obama’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.
◼ President too busy to attend daily intelligence briefings; made up for it by missing all of his daily economic briefings - Doug Ross
Is it still a "Presidential Daily Brief" if the president doesn't bother to attend? The Washington Post relays the stunning stats from the Government Accountability Institute....
And the president also appears to be placing other priorities ahead of the economy and unemployment: from April 2011 through July 24, 2012, the president hasn't received a single daily economic briefing.
...Something is missing. If you look at Barack Obama's calendar for 26th of April, 2011 you will see on his schedule at 10 AM "The President receives the Economic Daily Briefing," after that nothing. According to the daily schedule released by the White House, Barack Obama hasn't received his "daily" economic briefing for the past 15 months (The White House, Accessed 7/23/12).
