I’m finally the first one here. Yippee.....
Themes of the day appear to be "Trump in a [poll] slump" and Morell's OpEd in the NYT. That OpEd is half "Trump is unfit" and "Trump is an unwitting tool of the Russians."
Ben Carson had a good rebuttal to Morell, on CNN. Pointed out that he has the same judgment as Hillary on the Benghazi incident, and the same interest in justifying the abandonment of Americans under attack in Benghazi.
The press trots Morell out as an unbiased career intelligence officer, when his role has always been PR in support of whoever hires him. He works alongside Leon Panetta.
BLITZER: I want to talk about the economy in a moment. I want to get your reaction, your response to what the former acting CIA director, Michael Morell, did today. Wrote an article in "The "New York Times," endorsing Secretary Clinton, describing Donald Trump this way -- let me put it up on the screen. He said, "Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security. In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous commander-in-chief."He spent 20-plus years, served Democratic presidents, Republican presidents. He said he can no longer remain silent and wrote this arm. Your reaction?
CARSON: My reaction is that he has also involved with the secretary of state during the Benghazi thing. And he was not critical of her in a situation where we had those Navy SEALs on top of that compound firing away, helping their colleagues escape. And I know in the back of their mind, they were saying, help is on the way, because we've always supported our troops. We've always supported our staff. We left them. We said it's too dangerous. What precedent does that set? What does that tell our military people in the future? You get in a scrape, you're on your own? That's not a good message. That's somebody who I think would not be a fit commander-in-chief.
BLITZER: So you are saying Hillary Clinton would not be a fit commander-in-chief. But you are raising questions now about Mike Morell, a career professional, rose through the ranks in the intelligence community. You are suggesting what, that he's partisan, that he's not responsible?
CARSON: That he supports -- yeah, he supported her throughout that whole endeavor. If he was truly someone who was concerned about America, about our defense and about our image, I think he would not have participated in that.
BLITZER: He had two CIA contractors who were killed in that Benghazi operation, terrorist attack. I assume he's very, very intimately involved if all that of that. And all of the congressional reviews, basically, did not condemn if at all, as far as I know.
CARSON: Well, whether they condemned him or not, he was a part of it, Wolf. You can't get him out of it. He was in it. He knew what was going on. He knew -- I mean, this is really quite, quite clear. So why was he not concerned about that if he's so concerned about the defense of our nation?
BLITZER: I am sure he is very concerned.
ISIS also right now in this article very concerned about Donald Trump and his relationship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Listen to what he writes, among other things, about that, he says, "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin has recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."