Posted on 05/11/2015 8:37:52 PM PDT by Bratch
I ran across this heavily edited article at USA Today written by Susan Page. In it, she reports a new book coming out by a man she describes as having a "33-year career with the CIA." This man is Michael Morell who praises Barack Obama as "extremely thorough" but claims that Governor Palin had "no understanding of national security issues" back when he claims to have met her in 2008.
Everything from the headline to the image Susan Page uses indicates who the USA Today writer was interested in spotlighting. (Yep, Governor Palin remains the left’s ultimate bogeyman). Furthermore, when one digs a tad bit deeper, it shows how Morell is being a little disingenuous in his assessment and reveals a whole lot of relevant information that Susan Page withheld from her readers.
Let’s begin with the facts on Morell. First, if you remember, he was the guy exposed as one of the authors of the Obama administration’s lame talking points on the Benghazi attack where said administration completely botched its response by sending Susan Rice out to blame the attacks on a YouTube video.
And like a good bureaucrat who protects an inept President and then-Secretary of State with presidential aspirations of her own, Morell took the fall by leaving the CIA. Via Politico:
Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, who took the blame for editing the Obama administration’s Benghazi talking points, announced his retirement Wednesday.
Morell, a 33-year CIA veteran, leaves a month after the White House released emails showing he was the one who removed al-Qaeda references from the much-debated talking points, which United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice later delivered on the Sunday talk shows.
CIA Director John Brennan said the exit was so Morell could “retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities.”
I am not sure how the "more time with his family" part worked out, but we now know that two of his "professional opportunities" included writing a book (which comes out Tuesday) and joining a consulting firm that had shoddy ties with the Benghazi matter. This was described in a FOX News report by Catherine Herridge:
Meet Beacon Global Strategies.
The online bios for its founders and managing directors suggest no group knows more about the Benghazi terrorist attack and the Obama administration’s response. Yet the consulting firm has deep ties to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others involved in the controversy – ties so intertwined with the administration and Capitol Hill that they raise questions about an upcoming hearing where former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell is slated to testify.
"It is like a revolving door on steroids," Bill Allison, whose Sunlight Foundation is a nonprofit that supports government transparency, told Fox News, adding that Washington’s “revolving door” is a bipartisan problem.
"Republicans have gone through the revolving door, Democrats. … It says an awful lot about Washington and how hard it is to really be independent in Washington.”
[…]
Morell, who also is a national security analyst for CBS News and has a book deal, joined the Beacon firm after retiring from the CIA last year. In doing so, he joined an organization already stacked with ex-government officials. Among them is Philippe Reines, whom the New York Times magazine recently described as Clinton’s "principal gatekeeper." According to Beacon’s website, Reines traveled to more than 110 countries with the then-Secretary of State as part of her senior team."
Now back to the current article. While reporting on Morell’s upcoming new book, Susan Page apparently asked him to assess a few policymakers. Accordingly, Morell describes his experiences with President Obama and Governor Palin:
President Obama: "One of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Extremely thorough. Asks extraordinarily good questions. Very open to what people have to say. Willing to change his mind if he hears a good argument. … (But) people’s weaknesses flow from their strengths. One of Barack Obama’s great strengths is: ‘Ask all the questions. Let’s get all the information on the table. Let me hear from everybody, right?’ One of the weaknesses of that is it takes longer to make a decision."
Sarah Palin: "I gave her her first national security briefing (during the 2008 campaign). … Her questions about foreign leaders, trying to understand what motivated them, how they think, how she could connect with them — I found those questions really insightful. I found that on the issues that she had virtually no understanding of national security issues. And at the end of the day, that wasn’t her fault. She didn’t have experience, right? And my view, sitting there, was that she had been put in a very, very difficult situation."
Notice in both cases, he mentions their similarities in asking questions. However, he doesn’t go on to tell us what he perceived as to what Obama did or didn’t know as he did in the case of Governor Palin.
Sure he gives her a qualifier by proclaiming that it "wasn’t her fault" and goes on to sing the praises of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. However, in the context of how lamestream media reporters like Susan Page use the information. They want to continue the meme on Governor Palin which claims she was uninformed, a myth that was debunked a long time ago by people with behind-the-scenes knowledge of the McCain campaign.
His kind words of Bush and Cheney are moot considering that neither are viewed as current day political threats to someone like Hillary Clinton. All the while, Susan Page’s depiction of Morell’s words seems to prove the exact opposite in the case of Governor Palin, whose endorsements and campaigning efforts have helped deliver the majority of the GOP presidential lineup this year.
Additionally, Governor Palin predicted the Ukraine crisis with stunning accuracy and was on the right side of the argument regarding Syria when the president was ready to actively involve our resources without clearly knowing what our mission was.
Another inconvenient fact is Governor Palin’s relentless quest for the truth on the same Benghazi attacks that Morell helped to cloud prior to his retirement. She’s done it along with others like Trey Gowdy who had plenty to say about Morell here.
At the very least, how did Susan Page not find these facts relevant in her reporting?
And for all of Obama’s "good questions," we still have ISIS living in the United States. We also had a beheading in Oklahoma, an underwear bomber, and have experienced such tragedies as the Boston bombing and the Fort Hood massacre. All happened on our soil while he was president and were all associated with radical Islam. Yet despite America’s factually "good argument," the president simply won’t "change his mind" and call any of it out for what it is.
Instead he insults Christians to protect the radicals just as he demands the innocent majority of America engage in "soul searching" every time a few thugs loot and destroy businesses across America with no regard for things like credible evidence and testimony.
Morell’s cherry-picking where Governor Palin is concerned is just the tip of the iceberg. Here we have a guy touted as an expert. He worked for the CIA for 33 years. He resigned in what would appear to be part of a larger effort orchestrated to protect the senior officials of an inept administration. Now he’s going to be used by the lapdog media to discredit today’s conservatives like Governor Palin who are threats to the left.
Michael Morell’s new book will be marketed by both sides for various reasons. Yet, we cannot allow ourselves to forget his disservice to the American people which lead to his retirement. We also can’t deny the fact that this is yet another reason why Americans are becoming less and less trusting of big government and its accompanying bureaucrats. Nor can we forget that there is a big problem with both sides of the aisle where such bureaucracy continues to be embraced, as mentioned in the FOX News article referenced above:
"It is like a revolving door on steroids," Bill Allison, whose Sunlight Foundation is a nonprofit that supports government transparency, told Fox News, adding that Washington’s “revolving door” is a bipartisan problem.
"Republicans have gone through the revolving door, Democrats. … It says an awful lot about Washington and how hard it is to really be independent in Washington.”
Yes, it sure does.
(h/t to Whitney Pitcher and Mary Beth House for their contributions to this post)
[ UPDATE ] 5pm pst
Governor Palin was asked to comment on the Morell interview by CNN
When asked for a comment, Palin told CNN, "Get in line – behind Obama’s entire failed leftist team. Morell is actually defending Hillary on Benghazi and he had the talking points on Benghazi sanitized after innocent Americans were murdered. This shill for the radicals who lie to America whitewashes Benghazi, disgraces the sacrifice of fallen patriots who spilled blood for our freedom, yet thinks it’s important to spill ink on a woman who would love to debate him on all things ‘heartland America.'" (WPTZ)
He didn't come across as particularly trustworthy.
We seem to have wasted 33 yrs of federal salary and benefits employing a moron.
LOL! The doper tard fag Sunni Muslim foreign student is "extremely thorough".
No. His HANDLERS are extremely thorough.
One of the smartest people I’ve ever met
this guy hates women.
The man is smart for asking questions while the woman wasn’t smart for asking questions...#checkyourmalepriviledge
PDS is alive and well.
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