President Obama appeared to discover a new Federal Agency recently, and the discovery inspired me to provide a little briefing video for the President, as part of his on The Job Training.
I hope you enjoy it:
Presidential On The Job Training: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Posts
I worked with the NGA back when it was NIMA (I think it changed to NGA while I was working with them). They are probably some of the smartest people, in this world. Period.
While POTUS was ignorant, and that can seem terrible, the US Government is huge. The real problem here is that his people are beyond being rank amateurs. When your "principal" (i.e. your senior leader/boss) goes somewhere, you brief him/her on the who, what, why, where, when facts so he/she doesn't look stupid.
POTUS clearly has a weak and inexperienced staff. This would have been my brief to him: "Sir, we're visiting NGA today, they take multiple streams of information to create mapping and imagery for our military and other agencies so they can perform their missions accurately." It's that simple. Maybe give him index cards or something. Anything to keep the Boss from looking ignorant.
That's cool you worked with them, Dan.
It is a highly technical field, and the POTUS shouldn't be expected to know all of the details. I didn't think he came off looking too stupid, although a briefing would've helped. I'm fair-minded enough to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
It's a nicely done introduction to the NGA.
This is part of what is so fun about President Obama. The Dems try to make themselves out to be the smartest people in the room. They gigged W when he did or said something they considered stupid, and I fully intend to gig them back over the next 6 or 7 years.
I think Obama could have saved himself some grief by asking the guy what he did there since the cameras were rolling, it's what I would done...