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The Obama administration took the rare step Thursday of correcting its own intelligence chief after the official claimed Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular."

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper discussed the Islamist group during a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier Thursday. He testified that the organization has "pursued social ends" and a "betterment of the political order," and downplayed its religious underpinnings.

"The term 'Muslim Brotherhood' ... is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam," Clapper said.

But the DNI later issued a statement to "clarify" that claim.

"To clarify Director Clapper's point, in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak's rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation. He is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization," DNI spokesperson Jamie Smith said.

While the Brotherhood has renounced violence, one of its goals is to pursue the creation of an Islamic state. The CIA's own website lists the Brotherhood as a "religious-based" party.

This isn't the first time Clapper has stumbled on the public stage.

During a televised interview in December alongside other top security officials, Clapper was stumped when asked about a major set of terror arrests in Great Britain.

The White House later acknowledged that Clapper had not yet been briefed about the sweep, while defending him as "the consummate DNI."



sometimes i feel like we have a bunch of dunderheads running this country.

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here's another example.

Political analysts say the Obama administration is still struggling with a volatile situation, leading to mixed messages on whether it believes Mubarak still has a role in Egypt's political future or what sort of government it may accept.

The White House invited several Middle East scholars to discuss the Egypt upheaval Tuesday.

“The administration has had a horrible problem with message discipline,” one attendee said on condition of anonymity. “I think the people in the room from the administration are largely in synch, but projecting that out to all the parts of the administration is not working."

"They believe they understand how the president sees it," he continued. "But to get the Secretary of State on board and the spokesmen and everyone else – they end up having the policy which they believe is clear, which is perceived [on the outside] to be vacillating.”

The sense of mixed messages coming from the administration became acute over the weekend, a day after U.S. officials had made clear Washington was pressing for Hosni Mubarak's swift exit from office.

While U.S. officials moved quickly to distance the administration from remarks made Saturday by White House Egypt special envoy Frank Wisner that Hosni Mubarak should stay on as president during the transition to oversee constitutional reforms, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to endorse a more gradual transition process in remarks over the weekend to a Munich security conference. She later seemed to defend the logic of Mubarak staying on during the transition in remarks to journalists traveling back to Washington with her on Sunday.

Vice President Joe Biden then took a more forceful posture Tuesday, pressing Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman in a phone call for a series of concrete and immediate reforms -- which were detailed in an unusually lengthy and explicit White House readout of the call.

Some meeting attendees Tuesday were skeptical, however, that the administration's mixed signals are the result of a message discipline problem, rather than "a sign that the administration cannot seem to make up its mind," as Abrams put it in a blog post Wednesday.

The Obama administration, “like the rest of us, is trying to make adjusments as [events] go on. But it’s not a story they’ve mastered,” said Ajami, who wouldn't discuss the internal conversation, but offered his view of the situation. “It didn’t originate in Washington, it came by surprise, they didn’t expect it.”

"I think they're blowing in the wind," an attendee put it more bluntly.

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This was all the talk yesterday.  It doesnt give me much confidence in our intelligence capabilities.  Its becoming clear that we have a bunch in govt that refuse to see radical Islam for what it is.  They dont see it as a danger to Western Society.  They've turned their backs on Israel and our allies.

The way thes buffoons are treating radical Islam, its like handing you a rattlesnake and saying go ahead and pet it....it wont really hurt you..

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but it seems like this is the case about more than just islam. they try to project such a nuanced message on everything, that it looks like they're just a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. remember they did the same thing regarding whether or not hu jintao, and later, mubarak, were dictators or not. they came out and said one thing, only to reverse course the next day. remember gitmo? jumped right on closing it down, yet 3 years later...  remember the july 2011 pullout date obama set in front of a crowd of westpoint cadets? well that suddenly changed to 2014 or beyond. on the campaign trail, obama swore to be completely out of iraq by may of 2010. remember how he opposed military tribunals, then reversed this stance as well?

i mean it just goes on and on. the pattern is, he jumps out in front of an issue, coming down on one side, then he backpedals, until ultimately coming down on the opposite side.

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Dod, I know you probably already saw this:

That guy needs to be fired...yesterday.  Our lives are in his hands and he's out there saying the Muslim Brotherhood is no threat???

As for Obama...I have a feeling the guy thought he had all the answers and made all sorts of promises actually thinking he could make good on them.  But once he got into office he realized (to his horror) that it was going to be next to impossible to carry out his promises.