Dick Morris: Obama Missing In-Person Intel Briefings Akin to 'Not Doing the Job'

In an interview with NewsMax TV, former Bill Clinton strategist Dick Morris blasted President Barack Obama for not attending 58% of his daily intelligence briefings, a revelation from a new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report.

“It’s worth noting that Obama missed 58% of the national intelligence briefings during each term as president,” said Morris. “When you miss an intelligence briefing, it takes some effort. It’s not like you have to get in a suit and a tie and go down to the situation room and get briefed. They come to you… To miss the briefing you literally have to tell the guy go home and stay away.”

Morris said there is a profound difference between a president reading an intelligence report from an iPad versus receiving a live, in-person daily intelligence briefing.

“Obama claims he checked it on his iPad, but there’s a huge differencethere. If you’re reading a briefing, you skim over it, and you can’t askthe machine questions. You can’t ask if that’s human intelligence orsignals intelligence, or when did this first appear? Not having anational intelligence briefing, if you’re president, is essentially notdoing the job,” said Morris.

Morris said President Bill Clinton used to receive in-person briefings while brushing his teeth in the morning.

“Clinton used to listen to it while he was brushing his teeth, while he was shaving and still in his pajamas,” said Morris.

Morris is not alone in his consternation over Obama’s decision to forgo live, in-person daily intelligence briefings. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said on Wednesday he is “dumbfounded” by the GAI report.

Liberal former CNN host Piers Morgan, in a Wednesday inaugural editorial for the Daily Mail, said Obama’s comments this week blaming ISIS’s rise on Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were a “shameless, reprehensible display of buck-passing.” Morgan said Obama’s actions are “Hardly surprising when we discover yesterday that he has only attended 42.1 percent of his Presidential Daily intelligence briefings.”