Amateur Hour

It has become obvious that our country is being run by amateurs - people who engage in a pursuit as a pastime rather than as a profession (synonym: nonprofessional).

Examples abound, but the most recent one involves the White House mistakenly revealing the name of the top CIA official in Afghanistan.

In an embarrassing flub, the Obama administration accidentally revealed the name of the CIA's top official in Afghanistan in an email to thousands of journalists during the president's surprise Memorial Day weekend trip to Bagram Air Field.

The officer's name — identified as "chief of station" in Kabul — was included by U.S. embassy staff on a list of 15 senior American officials who met with President Obama during the Saturday visit. The list was sent to a Washington Post reporter who was representing the news media, who then sent it out to the White House "press pool" list, which contains as many as 6,000 recipients.

White House officials realized the error after the Post reporter notified them, and sent out a new list without the station chief's name...

In intelligence circles, this is known as locking the barn door after the horse is outed.

The reporter who distributes the pool report sends it to the White House to be checked for factual accuracy and then forwarded to the thousands of journalists on the email distribution list, so in this case the White House failed on at least two occasions to recognize that the CIA official's name was being revealed and circulated so broadly.

This brings to mind some great acts from the annals of show business.

Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour

Keystone Cops

The Gong Show

I could go on, but you get the idea...

Yes, this is a real book.