60 Minutes, Guardian Separately Portray a Presidency of Dangerous Negligence

In the past week, reports from Britain's Guardian and CBS' 60 Minutes separately have added to the growing perception that the president is incompetent, perhaps dangerously so.

Lara Logan's segment on Benghazi last night showed in stunning and chilling detail many of the failures that led to the Benghazi disaster.  Higher ups ignored months of reports by those whose job it was to warn of trouble.  Al Qaeda flags flying over local government buildings, a warning that a planned attack was imminent, and other red flags were blissfully ignored by the State Department and intelligence services.

After the attack started, locally based CIA teams ignored orders to wait.  Had they not acted on their own initiative, five more Americans would have died.

Repeatedly, Logan used interviews and computer generated maps to demonstrate the ineptness of leadership that makes decisions thousands of miles away.

While Obama is politically untouchable, the segment puts a broadside into the possible presidential plans of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Even as US intelligence broke down in Benghazi, it remained vigilant in keeping tabs on 35 world leaders.  Some, such as Robert Mugabe, may warrant such treatment. Allied nations, however, were targeted.  Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has made her outrage plain.

The Guardian reported this morning, saying the NSA fl denied a German report that it briefed Obama on its monitoring of world leaders' phone calls.

These reports stem from documentation provided to Guardian  by former intelligence contract worker Edward Snowden.

While this (on the surface) exonerates Obama, it does lead to the question of his lack of attention.  Either Obama agreed to spy on allied heads of state and government, or his intelligence services were running operations without a presidential approval that they sorely needed.

Public perception of Obama as a president often engaged by vacations and tee times certainly do not help his image.  The deterioration of administrations common in second terms seems to have set in early for Obama.

Last week, Gallup reported that Obama's approval rating fell below 45 percent.

Update:  The hat trick of incompetence.  Atlantic magazine writer says that Obamacare problems were predictable, but ignored.