YA THINK? Austin Bay: Media Gotcha Distorts National Security Challenges.

Determining actionable intelligence, assessing threats (current and emerging), implementing lines of operation to counter threats and forestalling damaging surprise (a process that includes accounting for enemy deception operations) are persistent national security challenges every presidential administration, from George Washington’s to Barack Obama’s, has confronted.

Some administrations have confronted them more effectively than others. Effectively addressing these challenges demands many things from a commander in chief, but steady leadership is foremost.

Steady leadership eludes checklist definition, but its key traits are sound judgment, morale-sustaining presence in crisis and the ability to focus on essential goals. Abraham Lincoln is a case study in steady.

You can bet your life the next president will confront these challenges, as well. In fact, you do bet your life. Sept. 11’s damaging surprise demonstrated America has violent enemies. Because intelligence gathering and analysis are imprecise arts, assessing a threat and organizing resources to counter it are imperfect endeavors.

Betting your life is a good reason to demand more from media than “knowing what we know now” gotcha questions regarding past national security decisions.

The worst gotchas are framed to elicit a simplistic answer that reinforces or advances a political narrative. To do this, the talking head must either drastically simplify the past (a relatively benign act) or erase the inconvenient past (a deceitful act).

The latter comes more naturally to some politicians than to others.