Israel Matzav

Dennis Blair resigning

Dennis Blair will be resigning as the Director of National Intelligence on Friday after President Obama lost confidence in him.

On the heels of a number of intelligence failures involving the Fort Hood shooter, failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, and questions about failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, it was no longer clear that Blair -- tasked with coordinating the 16 intelligence agencies and ensuring that they cooperate and share information – still had the full and complete confidence of the president, sources say.

One official tells ABC News that President Obama sought Blair’s resignation earlier this week, but Blair pushed back, hoping to convince the president to change his mind.

That did not happen.

The official says that there were high-profile problems on Blair’s watch and those certainly didn’t help him, but the ultimate reason Blair is gone is because of the dissatisfaction President Obama and the National Security Staff had with Blair’s ability to share intelligence in a tight, coherent and timely way.

This was, the official said, the result of long pent-up dissatisfaction with Blair as the principal intelligence adviser to the president, responsible for briefing the president every day and briefing the National Security Staff. In short, officials didn’t think the briefings were relevant to what the president was focused on that day or time period. They weren’t crisp or well-presented.

At other times, Blair didn’t seem to take “no” for an answer, the official said. He was pushing an initiative dealing with intelligence and other countries, and he kept pushing it even after President Obama turned it down.

The news will not come as a surprise to those in the intelligence community. For months, Blair has turf battles while the White House made it clear that it had more confidence in others, such as counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan, taking the lead both publicly and privately.

In other words, Obama needed a fall guy to blame for all the intelligence screw-ups over the past few months and Blair was available. Hey - maybe he can sneak Chas Freeman in if he waits long enough to make him a recess appointment.

But there's actually a worse possibility than Freeman this time, and he's actually more likely to get the nod. That would be Obama's current terrorism czar John Brennan. Danielle Pletka says Brennan ought to resign from his current position and be put out to pasture, and I agree.

Michael rightly ridicules the perennial search for the moderate murderer, but doesn’t note that this sort of stupidity usually comes from career diplomats whose job it is to make nice. And while I still count the suggestion as foolish when it comes from a diplomat, I’m totally floored when it comes from someone charged with fighting terrorism.

“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan explained. Yes, Mr. Brennan, and so is al Qaeda. So is Hamas. For that matter, I think that Ted Bundy was kind of an interesting guy. But Hezbollah is responsible for the death of American citizens, responsible for extraterritorial killings like the Argentina Jewish Community Center bombing, responsible for helping to train terrorists to kill our soldiers in Iraq, likely responsible for helping Syria assassinate former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri… I could go on, at length.

Sure, Hezbollah is interesting; they’re a modern terror group that mixes politics and murder. But, Mr. Brennan, your job is the murder part. You’ve already proven your interest in—and ineptness at—the game of politics in your own country. You owe Hezbollah’s victims an apology. And while you’re at it, perhaps this is the time to start looking for another job. Haven’t you embarrassed this administration (and yourself) enough?

Just one catch: I don't think this administration is embarrassed by Brennan. He is truly one of them.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:39 AM