Israel Matzav

Obama's go-to guy on intelligence

Well, isn't this great news? The Washington Post reports that counter-terrorism chief John Brennan, the guy who calls my city al-Quds, regards jihad as a legitimate tenet of Islam, and looks for 'moderates' in Hezbullah, is President Obumbler's go-to guy for intelligence.

For all the near-misses on his watch, including the failed bombing of Times Square, Brennan has grown only more powerful within the White House, according to numerous officials. His allies -- and there are many -- say he is abundantly competent with a reassuring style. Critics -- many of them close to Blair -- say Brennan's 25-year career at the CIA has made him too sympathetic to the agency, skewing the new balance that was supposed to emerge with the intelligence reforms that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Nearly all agree, though, that Brennan has built a high-voltage security hub in the White House, one that far outmuscles that of his predecessors. From a windowless, lower-level West Wing suite that he shares with Denis R. McDonough, the chief of staff to the National Security Council, Brennan has frequent access to the president.

"Brennan is really doing the job of the DNI," one senior intelligence official said.

...

Administration officials reject suggestions that Brennan has become a de facto DNI, nothing that he does not perform the job's core function, managing the broader intelligence community. But they acknowledge that Brennan, along with McDonough and others, have kept a tight rein on the administration's message, barring Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta and other top officials from meeting with reporters or appearing on television news shows, even when their agencies are in the headlines.

White House officials said they simply do not believe that intelligence chiefs should be put in the position of having to answer policy questions in public.

And we thought that having Chas Freeman chair the National Intelligence Council was as bad as it could get. What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:38 AM