Former CNN host Piers Morgan, who is now an editor-at-large for the US operation of The Daily Mail, slammed Obama on Sean Hannity’s television show Monday after having been “reasonably supportive of him.”
Morgan was critical of President Obama throwing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper under the bus in a 60 Minutes interview last month, his strategy to defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the president’s view on America’s role in the world, especially with reference to combating the Ebola crisis
Morgan: Take the piece I wrote for Mail Online this week. It just struck me that Obama, when he threw James Clapper under the bus and the entire 200,000 people —
Hannity: He blames everybody but himself.
Morgan: — Yeah. It was an extraordinary moment to me. Why a president would say ‘they’ about his own intelligence services and not ‘we,’ why he would want people to think, ‘this has nothing to do with me, guv.’ And when I look at the spread of ISIS through the Middle East, a lot of it comes back, it seems to me, to Obama’s foreign policy strategy of, ‘I like to lead from behind. America should go away from being the global policeman to being the leader from behind.’ America shouldn’t be leading anything from behind. America is, at its best, a great superpower. And when it’s at its best, whether it’s dealing with Ebola on a humanitarian level, or ISIS on a terrorism foreign policy level, America has to be confident, bold, and strong and decisive.
Hannity: I totally agree.
Morgan: And it’s that lack of decision-making that I think leads to the issues we now face.
Morgan noted President Obama spent more time on golf outings than he did in intelligence briefings, which he said was “terrible imagery.”
Morgan: And this is all just nonsense rhetoric, because ISIS clearly is an Islamic fundamentalist organization. It’s a terror group. And when they start beheading American and British citizens in these gruesome snuff movies that they’re making and releasing them to the world taunting —
Hannity: It’s horrible.
Morgan: — taunting these countries, it’s not good enough to simply say, ‘yeah, I’m really upset about this beheading,’ and then seven minutes later, as Obama did, go to a golf course and be seen goofing around on the first tee. That really hit home to me. Someone did a survey this week. They counted up the number of hours that Obama has been playing golf since he was president. It was about 850 hours if you base it on a five-hour round.
Hannity: More than the time he spent in his intelligence briefings.
Morgan: He attended 42 percent of his daily intelligence briefings, total hours of that 650 or something. So he’s actually spent 200 more hours whacking a golf ball than attending his daily briefings. Now, it’s not as simplistic as that. Obviously he would get other briefings. But it sent such terrible imagery to me.
Hannity: Horrible.
Morgan: And I’m basically, have always been reasonably supportive of him. What the hell is it doing to groups like ISIS and others intent on causing America and Britain serious harm? It sends an action to me of lethargy and complacency.
H/T: Western Journalism