Funny, a lot of people thought Obama was the real Manchurian candidate. 

Princeton, isn't that a State Dept. and CIA school? Did you draw the short straw for the Canada desk?

As for "Never has an American politician, let alone the president, so publicly dismisses his own intelligence finding..." Google JFK and Bay of Pigs. 

And did you skip this module in "history" class? 
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol47no1/article02.html

The more things change, the more they stay the same.