Remember this? On the day of the arrest of a dozen jihadists in London, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was asked by Diane Sawyer about their relevance. His response was effectively, “Arrests? What arrests?”

In responding to that interview clusterfark, the Obama Administration initially blamed Sawyer for asking an ambiguous question. Because really, what could a network anchor possibly mean when she’s asking a terror official about London on the day when the big story is the arrest of terrorists in London? So darned confusing.

Well, that excuse didn’t go over well. Now the Obama Administration admits that Clapper wasn’t briefed on the arrests in London. The Director of National Intelligence wasn’t made aware of terror arrests that anyone who had watched CNN knew about. Good news.

As Ed writes:

This explanation also stretches credulity to the breaking point. Clapper is not in charge of Homeland Security; he runs the National Intelligence Center, whose scope is global. In fact, it’s specific mission is to focus on all threats and act as a clearinghouse of intel for the entire American intelligence community. And how do we know there isn’t a homeland nexus? The man running American intel and in charge of the NIC didn’t even know about it. Did the NIC know about it? If they did, shouldn’t someone have picked up a phone and told the boss?

Besides, how difficult would it have been to brief Clapper on the arrests? By the time of the interview, all anyone had to do was print out any of dozens of media reports on the topic, if for no other reason than to let him know they occurred. If the DNI is too busy to get briefed, well, perhaps Congress needs to reorganize the intel community again, and this time properly, to reduce rather than expand the bureaucratic baggage.

Yep.