OBAMA’S DUMB INTELLIGENCE PICK
What stands out most about Team Obama's bizarre selection of Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council is its overwhelming lack of . . . intelligence.
Sheesh! Was anyone thinking when that choice was made?
Wasn't anyone in the Executive Branch aware that Freeman holds highly partisan, highly odious views on a host of key foreign-policy issues? (Not to mention several gross conflicts of interest.)
Surely, if someone had known, Freeman would have been disqualified from the git-go. After all, this is a job in which he'd be expected to dispassionately oversee one of America's most important analytical foreign-policy documents: the National Intelligence Estimate.
Unless, of course, Obama & Co. agree with Freeman's skewed views - a prospect even more worrisome than the notion that he merely slipped through cracks in the vetting process.
Critics of his selection have been coming out of the woodwork - indeed, from both sides of the aisle. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, for example, has reportedly expressed concerns.
No wonder: Freeman blames Israel for Palestinian violence, suggests US support of Jerusalem might have prompted 9/11 and embraces the anti-Semitic slur that Jews wield undue influence over US foreign policy, tilting it toward Israel at the expense of US interests.
He's also defended China's violent repression of dissent.
Perhaps some of those views stem from his dubious ties: He's headed the Saudi-funded, anti-Israel Middle East Policy Council, for example, and is on the international advisory board of a huge Chinese oil company that's invested in places like Iran and Sudan.
The inspector general in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was asked to probe those ties, which could surely complicate Freeman's job.
But either way, Freeman is ill-suited for the post. If Obama & Co. can't find an unbiased analyst or one on the right side of the issues, they can at least find someone with more mainstream views.
Unlike Freeman.
He needs to go.
