takoma wrote:Odd thing is that the part that catches the eye, the pausing, and the obvious mental thumbing through the notes, are not really the most significant part (IMO). I think the fact that when you come down to it, his one substantive statement is that he would have done a better job of assessing the opposition when, in fact, there is no available information about Obama's assessment, which is surely not something that is or should be public.
Of course, he is not the only one who plays that game; even Newt, who surely knows better, made a big fuss about how much more covert activity he would institute in Iran, when, by definition, we have no idea what covert activities are going on now. And which should surely not be telegraphed in advance by someone who might become president.
I mostly agree.
Except that the odds-on bet is that we are woefully deficient in on-the-ground intelligence. We have our Middle East people all over the map right now - Iraq, Afghanistan, a bunch of countries we won't admit to where terrorists operate. And that has to hurt. Second, we know during the most recent uprising in Iran we were complaining about lack of on-the-ground intelligence. It is probably real. Last, we had the same problem in Iran in the 70's. It's a safe bet that we did not improve things after the Shah fell.
But as for whether it is a real criticism, I'd have to reply "get us out of these fucking wars and then you will have people to devote to the countries who pose an actual threat to us".