Sen. John McCain criticized President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and leadership Tuesday in response to a report that he has attended less than half of his presidential daily briefs.
“I’m not too surprised. This was the same Sen. Obama who said the surge would not succeed; that it was doomed to fail,” McCain said to Fox News. “This is the same president who has pulled all of our troops out of Iraq without leaving a residual force. And the place is unraveling.”
The Government Accountability Institute, a conservative investigative research organization, reported that the president attended 43.8 percent of his presidential daily briefs during his first 1,225 days in office. In 2011 and the first half of 2012, that number dropped to 38 percent.
Fox News showed the video of McCain calling Obama’s national security policy “an abysmal failure” side-by-side with video of a smiling Obama greeting and shaking the hands of supporters.
McCain said Obama’s leadership is lacking, pointing to the potential effects of sequestration that may cause the loss of millions of jobs.
“The president is sitting idly by watching as this train wreck approaches,” McCain said. “It’s a total lack of leadership [and] lack of concern for our nation’s security.”
However, Obama may not always be playing hooky on his intelligence briefings. A photo taken in January released on the website of the director of national intelligence suggests that the president is sometimes briefed via his iPad.
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