Hot Air:
Most Democratic officeholders who have sought out the press to register their dissatisfaction with Obama’s approach to the situation in Iraq and Syria, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Peter Welch (D-VT) most notably, expressed their concern that Obama is going too far.
The president’s administration, which had floated the proposition of mounting airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, would be inviting more problems than he would solve, they reasoned. If the White House was determined to strike in Syria, he should come to Congress to seek their authorization.
Not every Democrat is urging the president to adopt a dovish position on the ISIS threat. Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Obama, a cautious figure on all matters foreign, is being “too cautious” in this case
“I think I’ve learned one thing about this president, and that is he’s very cautious. Maybe in this instance, too cautious,” Feinstein said. “And so hopefully, those plans will coalesce into a strategy that can encourage that coalition from Arab nations.”
“I know that the military, I know that the state department, I know that others have been putting plans together,” she added, in a direct rebuke of Obama’s insistence that his administration does not “have a strategy yet” to roll back ISIS in Syria.
Her subtle savaging of the president went a step further. When asked if ISIS is, as Obama said in January, al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” Feinstein flatly disagreed. “I think it’s a major varsity team, if you want to use those kinds of monikers. But I see nothing that compares with its viciousness,” she noted.
The main difference between Di Fi and Welch and Schiff is this:
Di Fi is Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairwoman.
Welch and Schiff are not even on that committee.
Di Fi is as informed as Obama is.
The difference between him and her is she sees the danger and wants to deal with it, Obama doesn’t even seem to see the danger from an expansionist Islamic State.
If Schiff and Welch think Obama has gone too far, when ISIS beheads the next American, they can make the in-person, next of kin notification.
As for Feinstein, she can sound tough in the beginning, but she can fold like a deck of cards when pressured.
@David: Look at all of the Democrats who voted to go into Iraq and then condemned the action. The Democrats have a history of doing this. They only want to retain their cushy digs in Washington and their elite status. Few understand they are supposed to be doing what is right for the people of the U
Obama-Jarrett would have to actually attend his security briefings and listen to what the military and security experts have to say to know if there were any plans in the works. But of course that might interfere with his golf game.
@Ditto: Obama doesn’t have security briefings.
He is given a written brief to read himself in private….if he ever does.
For Obama to have been taken by surprise by ISIS’ growth and violence he would have had to NOT read any of these briefs over the last year plus a few months.
ISIS has figured large in these written briefs.
@Nanny G:
Source: Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS
You can provide a Democrat with a highly detailed report but you can’t make them read it or take it seriously. Which is likely why Obama insists on only being given the print-out. Otherwise, if he continued in the past president’s tradition of a group security meeting, he would have to listen to all those boring details, which would waste time better spent on the putting green.