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A CNN panel on Tuesday night discussed the controversy over Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg being included in a Signal group chat along with Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in which U.S. policy in Yemen was discussed.
Obviously is was a mistake to include Goldberg and the news has been plenty controversial.
But the Trump administration is admitting its mistake and says they will work harder to make sure such a foul-up doesn't happen again.
CNN's resident conservative Scott Jennings said he found this "refreshing."
He also reminded the rest of his panel that the previous president did not do this, even after Joe Biden's massive failure in how he withdrew from Afghanistan.
Goldberg published parts of the chat at The Atlantic calling it "war plans," that really don't appear to be that, exactly, but it's embarrassing that information ended up in the hands of a journalist anyway.
While questioning the validity of the "war plans" claim, Jennings addressed the Trump administration's ability to acknowledge a mistake and the Biden administration's absolute refusal to do the same.
Jennings said, “None of us have seen, you know, what was supposedly war plans, and there’s still a dispute over, over just how sensitive it really was."
"But I do think it’s noteworthy that the White House is able to acknowledge a mistake, say they’re going to learn from it, say they‘re trying to figure out the technical issues that led to it,” Jennings continued. “I mean, they, they did own up to it. I mean, obviously, there’s been some rhetoric and hyperbole around Goldberg and others who, by the way, I agree, acted responsibly in this particular case. Even though if I have some quibbles with what he’s done in the past, he did absolutely act responsibly here.”
Again, Jennings found it "refreshing."
“So I think that’s actually kind of a refreshing thing for the government to say, ‘Okay, yes, effed up. We’ll fix it. This won’t happen again,’ especially when you contrast it with previous military and national security snafus in our recent history, in which no one was held accountable, no one was fired, no mistakes were admitted.”
He laid into the Biden administration, who oversaw the bombing of Kabul during Afghanistan withdrawal on August 26, 2021, that killed thirteen service members.
Jennings also praised President Trump.
“Until the very end, Joe Biden was saying Afghanistan was a success. I like it here that Donald Trump, the president, said, ‘He’s a good man, but he learned a lesson.’ That tells me he and the president, with Waltz, had a hard talk," Jennings said.
There was plenty of praise for Jennings.
It's good to have leaders who own their mistakes.
Accountability matters.
The White House made the same point.
Scott Jennings nailed it.
Jennings made a similar point last summer about Democrats never owning up to how horribly they handled the withdrawal when Kamala Harris was that party's presidential nominee.
When Biden's former boss, President Barack Obama, left office, he admitted that the U.S.'s role in destabilizing Libya was his greatest mistake, something significantly helped empower ISIS in the region at the time.
Good on Obama for admitting such a big mistake.
Good for the Trump administration doing the same this week.
Shame on Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their party.