Former White House press secretary Jay Carney — now a political commentator at CNN — claimed that President Obama’s stunning admission last month that “we don’t have a strategy yet” on the Islamic State was due to his limited political experience on the national stage.
Carney spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in his first appearance on CNN Wednesday. The anchor asked the former White House flack “how much of a mistake was it when the president said he really didn’t have a strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria?”
“You know Wolf, when I heard that I’m sure folks who I left behind when I left the White House grimaced a little bit,” Carney replied, claiming the president “quite clearly” meant to say that the strategy “was being developed.”
“You know, what you get with Barack Obama is somebody who was not a national politician even ten years ago, and he vaulted onto the stage” he explained. “And it’s been part of his appeal.”
“So he’s not always — when he’s speaking honestly — going to say it the way communicators who advise him would have him say it,” Carney continued. “And I’m sure that’s not the first instance where he wished he had said it differently, because that became a sideshow to the more substantive issues here.”
Comments