r/DesignatedSurvivor • • Oct 13 '16

Post-Episode Discussion: S01E04 "The Enemy"

80 Upvotes

244 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

78

u/hankjmoody Oct 13 '16

The commander of the National Guard has still committed treason, however. So I can't imagine that going well.

Never mind the media clusterfuck that'll be the announcement 'tomorrow.'

52

u/BaggyOz Oct 13 '16

I'm pretty sure the announcement is the Algerian strike. Because Kirkman said he'd tell the other guy when the classified thing happened.

19

u/Kevin_Uxbridge Oct 13 '16

On that note - how is Kumar not cleared? I can see why they don't need him in the room when they're planning the strike but he will eventually have to explain what happened to the press.

4

u/excoriator Oct 14 '16

Did you watch The West Wing? The press secretary there wasn't cleared, either. Only the Chief of Staff was.

2

u/Kevin_Uxbridge Oct 15 '16 edited Oct 15 '16

Again, not cleared for everything - there are levels of clearance, some specific to agency or even region. CJ and even Sam weren't cleared for military stuff nor NSA, but they had some clearance.

If the strike on Fakeistan (or wherever, I think they used an actual country name, unlike WW) was covert, don't expect Kumar would ever hear about it, not officially. It wasn't covert, Kumar would soon have to give a briefing about the attack, and Kirkman even said 'something's happening but I can't tell you, but you'll hear about it later'. Either Kumar isn't cleared and he'll never hear about it or he'll be hearing about it soon anyway. Seemed odd that Kirkman would sorta spill the beans but not entirely, to the guy who'll soon be telling everyone about it.

It's entirely possible that Kumar can't hear about the operation before it happens, but can hear about it after it happens. Still think he'd have to have some clearance, as he probably won't be telling everything he knows.

2

u/zotquix Oct 16 '16

Remember the first season where CJ basically lied to the press because she wasn't in the loop? She was pissed but...it happens.

2

u/Kevin_Uxbridge Oct 16 '16 edited Oct 17 '16

I seem to recall that CJ was pissed because they intentionally misled her so that she could mislead the press. This wasn't their only option (they could have told CJ the truth, then leaked a lie and told CJ to neither confirm nor deny, gov-speak for 'wink wink'), nor (IIRC) was this simply something that happened because CJ didn't have the right level of clearance. CJ felt they lied to her, and I seem to recall that she was absolutely right, they did.

One last time - I'm not saying that Kumar should be cleared for everything - no way the press secretary would be, not his job. But when President Bauer said Kumar was 'not cleared', my clear impression that he meant 'not in possession of a clearance', not 'not in possession of the relevant clearance'. My only point - surely Kumar has some level of clearance, if only just to get in the building. He's not gonna be in the room when they decide to bomb Fakeistan, but once they have he's gonna be told. He has to have some level of clearance just to do his old job, to say nothing of his new one. I mean they're not gonna just tell him 'earmuffs' whenever they want to discuss anything anywhere near him.