Fox News Mocked for Ridiculous Claim Obama Held Weekly ‘PC’ Meetings on ‘Political Correctness’

Fox News is getting ribbed once again for its bad reporting, apparently the result of a culture of hating President Barack Obama.

Rather than doing any fact-checking, Fox News decided to report: “A new book claims that top CIA employees have compared President Trump favorably to his predecessor, indicating that former President Barack Obama’s administration micromanaged intelligence matters and was too concerned with political correctness.”

The book is “Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency,” by Doug Wead.

Wead writes that under Obama, the CIA “spent a lot of time in the White House doing nonstop PC [political correctness] meetings.”

The insertion of “political correctness” in brackets appears to be by Fox News, which has spent years attacking “PC” culture, and seems to have be blinded by its own bad reporting.

“PC” in this instance does not stand for “political correctness,” as intelligence experts confirm.

It stands for “Principals Committee,” which are members of the United States National Security Council and other cabinet-level officials (photo). Members meet and advise the president on national security and foreign policy.

As Lawfare, a well-respected blog on matters of law and national intelligence reported in 2017, the Principals Committee primarily includes: “the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the National Security Advisor and Homeland Security Advisor, and the Representative to the United Nations.” Attendees to the “PC” National Security Council meetings also include the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It’s certain the top-ranking leaders of the executive branch of the United States government did not sit around discussing how to be “politically correct,” as some experts also noted.

For example, here’s a former Senior Advisor to National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Loren DeJonge Schulman, who also served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and served as Director for Defense Policy on the National Security Council staff, among other high-level positions.

I am dying.

Principals Committee meetings, Fox. Not political correctness meetings!

PC meetings were often not at all PC.
Cc @DenisMcDonough @AmbassadorRice https://t.co/mRbHWqxPv7

— Loren DeJonge Schulman (@LorenRaeDeJ) November 6, 2019

Former State Dept. attorney:

Intrigued by the translation of PC as “political correctness” in this article. In context it would read to me — and I would think to anyone who had worked in any relevant agency of the USG at least during that time frame — as “Principal’s Committee.” https://t.co/wW4enMJ8Fv

— Rebecca Ingber (@becingber) November 6, 2019

Former CIA Case Officer in Afghanistan and Iraq:

Often wonder what’s the point at which supremely dumb people find something too dumb even for them. The search continues…https://t.co/AgekPdWz17

— Patrick Skinner (@SkinnerPm) November 6, 2019

Washington Correspondent for TIME, former national security reporter for BuzzFeedNews:

Can’t get over this whole Fox News story being written on CIA staff’s complaints that under Obama “they spent a lot of time in the White House doing nonstop PC [political correctness] meetings.”

Except PC = Principals Committee meetings https://t.co/XBsG9LeSy9

— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) November 6, 2019

Daily Mail US Political Editor:

Area reporter has never heard of White House “Principals Committee,” which @DougWead shortened to “PC” in his book (just like White House aides do) https://t.co/G7QuE8L9UG pic.twitter.com/JsTBmj9hqz

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) November 6, 2019

Of course, the damage is done. The Fox News article has been published without any appropriate correction now for at least 14 hours, and the mentions on Twitter by those who blindly accept it as fact are significant.

Image: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza via Flickr