Josh Kraushaar: Obama's Pass-the-Buck Presidency

Earlier today, on Twitter, I was asking why the media does not see the pattern of Obama's dissembling and ducking of responsibility. They seem to now realize he's lying about his subordinates failing to warn him about ISIS:

Obama has had accurate intelligence about ISIS since BEFORE the 2012 election, says administration insider

A national security staffer in the Obama administration said the president has been seeing 'highly accurate predictions' about the rise of the ISIS terror army since 'before the 2012 election'

Obama insisted in his campaign speeches that year that America was safe and al-Qaeda was 'on the run'

The president said during Sunday's '60 Minutes' program that his Director of National Intelligence had conceded he underestimated ISIS

But the administration aide insisted that Obama's advisers gave him actionable information that sat and gathered dust for more than a year

'He knew what was at stake,' the aide said of the president, and 'he knew where all the moving pieces were'

Obama takes daily intelligence briefings in writing, he explained, because no one will be able to testify about warning the president in person about threats that the White House doesn't act on

That whole piece is good. Those are just the up-top bullet points.

So why doesn't the media see the pattern? Obama absented himself from oversight of HealthCare.org, then claimed it was all Kathleen Seblius' fault, for example.

Why don't they connect the dots? This is not an isolated incident; this is the central defining mode of Obama's presidency.

Well, John Kraushaar of the National Journal does see the pattern in all these matters, and lays a bunch of them out.

I really suggest you read this whole thing, but I'll just quote a little, for the lazy:

The elements of the administration's blame, deny, and wait-it-out communications strategy has been front and center amid all the recent controversies. When the administration badly botched the launch of the health care exchange website, Obama said he was "not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to." This, for his signature achievement in office. Blame was later pinned on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who left the administration in April.

When officials at the Internal Revenue Service improperly targeted conservative outside groups for scrutiny, Obama first feigned outrage, saying he had "no patience for" the misconduct. But months later, as the public's anger subsided, Obama said there "wasn't even a smidgen of corruption" at the agency, and the administration has done little to hold anyone accountable since.

...

The administration's approach to controversies was best crystallized by former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, who deflected criticism about allegations that talking points on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were altered for political reasons. "Dude, this was two years ago," he told Bret Baier of Fox News. The remarks were perceived as flippant, but they underscored the success of the administration's public-relations strategy. Buy enough time, and inevitably problems tend to go away--especially in today's attention-deprived environment.

He doesn't say so, but add into that: Especially given a media that affirmatively wants Obama to get away with it, and so will consciously join in his scheme of burying Obama's bad news the moment they feel Obama has successfully deprived the story of enough oxygen to smother it.

Oh, and:

posted by Ace at 03:18 PM

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