Cheney hits Obama on skipping intel briefings

Former Vice President Dick Cheney chastised President Obama over a study that showed the president only attended 44 percent of his national intelligence briefings through May, joining a chorus of other Republicans who have knocked Obama on the issue.

"If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden," Cheney said in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“Those who deserve the credit are the men and women in our military and intelligence communities who worked for many years to track him down. They are the ones who deserve the thanks of a grateful nation.”

Earlier Tuesday, former Republican presidential candidate John McCain said he's "not too surprised" to learn that the president sat in on less than half of the briefings.

But the White House has defended the president, noting Obama is presented with intelligence briefing materials every morning.

"He gets it every day, okay?" White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Monday. "The President of the United States gets the presidential daily briefing every day. There is a document that he reads every day when he is not — well, he always reads it every day because he’s a voracious consumer of all of his briefing materials. And when he is physically here, most days he has a meeting in his office, the Oval one, with participants in his national security team."

Carney then offered to measure the president's national security record against that of the Bush administration.

"I believe if you compare our foreign policy record with the one that preceded this one, we’re comfortable with that comparison," Carney said. "And this president is very much steeped in the details of national security issues and the information that as president he received."

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