These are the People Protecting Us?

This is scary on many levels.  Our Director of National Intelligence didn't know that there were terrorist arrests made in London before I did.  Now, I don't expect him to take every phone call or read every memo himself, but what type of staff does this man have?  Didn't anyone in his office feel that this was important information for him to have?  If they didn't have this information why not? 

The United Kingdom is one of our closest allies, if they didn't contact us with the information of the threat, shouldn't we be asking why not?  While it is perfectly understandable that the British may not have called before the arrests for the element of surprise, but surely after the arrests the information would be shared.  After all, the media had the information. 

The White House then comes out with the reasoning that we should be glad that he isn't watching television all day and doing his work.  Really?  I should be reassured that this man hasn't a clue of what is going on across the pond? 

Clapper's office has released a new statement:

Clapper, she explained, had been “working throughout the day on important intelligence matters, including monitoring military and political developments on the Korean Peninsula, providing answers to questions concerning the ratification of the START nuclear treaty, and other classified issues. He wasn’t immediately briefed on London because it didn’t appear to have a homeland nexus and there was no immediate action by the DNI required. Nevertheless, he should have been briefed on the arrests, and steps have been taken to ensure that he is in the future. The intelligence community as a whole was fully aware of this development and tracking it closely.”

Well, this makes me feel much better.  How about you?