Barack Obama Skips More than Half of his Daily Intelligence Meetings, Yet Touts His Foreign Policy Experience on the Campaign Trail

The absentee President … Priorities?

During Barack Obama’s first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB, Presidential Daily Brief, just 536 times, or 43.8% of the time. So you think that is a poor attendance rate, during 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent, falling to just over 38%. So much for making being informed a priority. What could be more important? Weasel Zippers opines, he [Obama] has bigger issues to worry about, namely fundraising, golfing and campaigning. Also reported at the Lonely Conservative, former Bush administration officials told Thiessen he held these meetings six days a week without fail. Obama has more important things to do, like try to save his job.

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.

Hmm, but yet the Obama spin machine has presented the narrative and optic that Obama is large and in charge.Of course many of us know better from Obama who leads from behind. However, in this case he is not even present, yet some how the president “brilliantly runs” meetings that he is not even attending.

Yet Vietor also directed me to a Post story written this year in which Obama officials discuss the importance of the intelligence meeting and extol how brilliantly the president runs it. “Obama reads the PDB ahead of time and comes to the morning meeting with questions.

Not so consistently, it seems. Since Obama officials have actively promoted the way the president runs his daily intelligence meeting as evidence of his national security leadership (even releasing a photo of him receiving the briefing on an iPad), it is fair to ask why he skips the daily meeting so often.

Makes one just scratch their head at the aloofness and arrogance of not attending such and important daily meeting. UNREAL.