Noah Rothman:
“I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”
That was President Barack Obama’s response to CBS reporter Steve Kroft who asked the president if he was surprised by the rapid rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – a group which he had previously dismissed as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee” team.
As Ed Morrissey observed, it took only hours for The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake to find well-connected sources willing to denounce the president’s dishonest buck passing. Using some rather coarse language, one frustrated former Pentagon official accused the president of either being mendacious or ignoring his intelligence briefings. Morrissey observed that even New York Times reporters found the president’s testimony in his own defense wanting.
Now, even some Democrats are jumping ship. Former Rear Admiral Joe Sestak, a two-term Democratic member of the House of Representatives, a House Armed Services Committee member, and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, was asked on Monday how it was possible for the intelligence community so gravely underestimate ISIS. Sestak appeared to surprise his MSNBC interlocutor when he noted that the only people who got ISIS wrong work in the Obama administration.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/iqfh9ota0oo[/youtube]
“How did the U.S. intelligence community get it so wrong on ISIS?” MSNBC host Jose Diaz-Balart asked.
“I don’t think they did,” Sestak replied bluntly, prompting Diaz-Balart’s eyebrows to nearly rocket off of his face in shock.
In fairness they tried to tell him but Obama wasn’t present half the time.