Obama to receive first daily intel briefing (PDB)

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President-elect Barack Obama is expected to receive on Thursday his first top secret intelligence briefing similiar to the one provided President Bush each day, according to U.S. officials familiar with the process.

A team of intelligence briefers has been named and is ready to discuss with Sen. Obama the Presidential Daily Brief – the PDB as it is called.

In a message to CIA employees obtained by CNN, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell will lead the first briefing of the newly elected President and has designated senior agency officer Michael Morrell to oversee the PDB process during the transition. The two principal briefers for Obama will be CIA career officers.

Each day, the commander in chief receives the PDB. DNI McConnell and other senior national security officers brief President Bush each morning, six days a week, on the most sensitive information affecting the security of the United States. The President learns about the latest threats and what the nation's spies are doing to help protect the nation.

The PDB is put together each night by a small group of senior analysts at the CIA, incorporating the most current information gathered from the 16 agencies which make up the intelligence community. It might include reports from spies, satellite imagery and electronic intercepts. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer once referred to the PDB as the "most highly sensitized classified document in government." Vice President Cheney has called the PDB "the family jewels."...

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Vice President-elect Joe Biden will also receive a PDB briefing.

Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/05/obama-to-receive-first-daily-intel-briefing/

[Richard D]

1. And you know he'll read it . . .

. . . and understand what's in it. Quite an improvement over the last 8 years.

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Do like me, and ignore the PDBs. Saves time for golf. Smirk." - Commander AWOL ( R)

[thunder rising]

3. To which the President Elect replied, "Hey guys, I'm literate. How about sending it to me PGP'ed in

an email."

Let's face it, if it's cherry picked shit for Chimpy what real value can it be.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Bill Clinton --

"President Clinton preferred to simply read the PDB himself, shunning the in person briefing." I -- and the idea of myself as Pres is beyond laughable -- might like to have a person to direct questions to if I had them.

[Redwraithvienna]

5. Depends ...

On the person who will answer those questions.

I am working at a university, and whenever i have to grade big papers, i read them alone and then have a Q&A private session with the student who wrote it. Basically it would also be acceptable on my university that i let him or her present the paper in a speech or presentation ... but i like to read alone first and then ask questions later. frees the mind.

I know its not comparable... what i want to say is that the approch to such things differ, and that it depends on the person which one is better for the comprehesnion of the information presented.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. That actually sounds like the best approach. I, too, like to study something in solitude...

and then you have time to reflect on it, and decide what questions to ask or comments to make.

[Lakerstan]

7. He should look at the archived PDB's for the last 8 years...

Then he'll see how much Bush screwed us...

[MindPilot]

8. Is this the part where Obama says "holy fucking shit!!"?

"I had no idea it was THAS bad!"

[Doodler71]

9. He probably won't need a dictionary next to him to read it either.

All that verberfication and vocabularified words can be cunfusticating -GWB