Fox News Criticizes All the “PC” Meetings Obama Had Because They Didn’t Realize PC Could Stand for More Than One Thing

Fox News published an article Tuesday criticizing Barack Obama’s White House for micromanaging intelligence matters. The article was centered on a new book from a conservative writer and commentator Doug Wead, who, according to Fox, “cites an unnamed White House source who claims CIA officials leveled complaints against the Obama administration.” According to that source, top CIA staffers have a more favorable view of Trump because he, as Fox writes, “decentralized control and gave more freedom to agencies,” while Obama ran everything through the White House.

Except it’s a little hard to take Wead–or Fox–seriously, since a major example he cited (which the article has now corrected) is that the Obama White House used to hold too many “political correctness” meetings. That’s definitely the sort of thing you would expect Fox News to rail against but the thing is, it never happened. What Obama did have were “Principals Committee” meetings, a totally normal and very important thing.

The Principals Committee is a National Security Council interagency forum that includes the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and more. I’m sure they talk about a lot of things but I doubt “political correctness” is one of them.

This is a thing that a person writing a book about a presidency should absolutely know. And while all journalists make embarrassing mistakes sometimes and Fox News is nothing if not perpetually embarrassing, this really seems like something someone there should have caught before repeating.

(via Mediaite, image: Pete Souza/White House photo)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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