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Clapper and the London Arrests

novice skeptic

Muse
novice skeptic
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Feb 17, 2008
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As I'm sure everyone knows, the Director of National Intelligence came off rather badly in an on air interview with Diane Sawyer. He looked befuddled and out of the loop when asked about that day's arrest in London of terror subjects.

The department first explained away the episode by claiming that the reason for his confusion was that Sawyer's question was "ambiguous". They later amended that and said that the Director was never briefed on the arrest (despite the American Embassy in London being on the suspects' short list of targets).

What do people think about this? Should this be a legit concern that the guy was out of the loop and didn't know about something that was common knowledge to most people already or do we say, "Hey a guy can't know everything?" and figure that remedies will be made to make sure this doesn't happen again. Or any other thoughts.

Weigh in with your opinions.

Link from Weekly Standard about the incident:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dni-director-james-clapper-needs-know_525796.html
 
Opinion: It was the same day. Paperwork and bureaucracy are slow moving beasts. I just take it to mean that the report hadn't made it to the top yet.

Granted he possibly would be expected to know about the arrests in advance but it might have been handled at a lower level than his.

Directors in government departments are like CEOs in the private sector; if they stopped coming in to work it wouldn't affect the workings of the company/organization in the least. There are exceptions of course.
 
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I know sports references don't go over here as much as favorite Middle Earth vocabulary words, most watched Star Trek episodes and best Yes keyboard solos, but someone will get the above pic.
 
I'm surprised he wasn't aware. Not that I expect that were he aware anything different would have happened. Large agencies, like corporations run without daily hand holding by the person at the top.

I'm surprised that there isn't someone who's sole job is to ensure he is prepped going into an interview with any up to the minute information.

Had there been an actually attack and he wasn't aware, I would be concerned.

In case it needs saying, this is my response regardless of the party in charge.

Oh, don't care for yes, liked the Tolkien trilogy and Jackson movies of same as well as Star Trek, but would fail miserably in any trivia contests.
 
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It was definitely a very visible gaff, but that does not mean it is significant.

Had Director Clapper been briefed even moments before the interview we would not be having this discussion, yet it would not have represented any larger involvment or understanding of the arrest on his part.

The fact is that people in positions like Clapper's have to deligate athority. Otherwise nothing would get done. It is inevitable that members of a large organization will be out of the loop on many issues pertinent to the running of that organization.

He most likely would have been briefed in due time. I see this mostly as a matter of image, not performance. Although they would have been wise to pay more attention to the short list of questions and you could say that is a performance issue. ;)

regards, Canis
 
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