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Is Panetta Right for the CIA?
The Stump —
Dianne Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller are unhappy with Obama's surprise choice of Leon Panetta to run the CIA. The beef is that a CIA director should be an intelligence professional without a political background. On the other hand, George Tenet was an outwardly nonpartisan intelligence staffer for years before he was chosen to lead the agency. And we all know how that turned out. The flap over Panetta's selection obscures, incidentally, the arrival of another senior Clinton administration veteran atop in the Obama team. Panetta was no cheerleader for Hillary during the campaign, to be sure--but he still ...
Obama Snubs Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein
Tennessee Guerilla Women —
So Obama chose Leon Panetta to head the CIA and then he forgot to consult with, or bother to mention it to Dianne Feinstein, the incoming Chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence! Senator Feinstein read about it in the New York Times. The sweetie is pissed: “I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read,” Feinstein said in a statement. “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.” A Feinstein spokesman ...
Why did Obama pick Leon Panetta — a man with no significant experience in intelligence — to head the C.I.A.?
Althouse —
The NYT has this: Democratic officials said Mr. Obama had selected Mr. Panetta for his managerial skills, his bipartisan standing, and the foreign policy and budget experience....Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is now the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and will conduct any confirmation hearing, is openly expressing disapproval, both because Panetta is not an intelligence professional and because she was not consulted. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the outgoing chair of the committee, is also said to disapprove. The choice of Mr. Panetta comes nearly two weeks after Mr. Obama had otherwise wrapped up his ...
Early Morning Swim: Special Muckraker of the Day Edition
Firedoglake —
Israel continues to run up the score on Gaza.
Meet the new head of CIA.
No one told DiFi or Rockefeller.
Josh Marshall is baffled.
So is Dreyfuss.
Meet the new junior senator from ...
Inside The CIA: Not AbleTo Say No To Torture?
TalkLeft —
Writing about Leon Panetta's selection as CIA Director, Ann Althouse quotes a (misinformed - Brennan's statements in support of rendition and torture after leaving the CIA are what did him in) NYTimes piece and draws and interesting conclusion - inside the CIA, they can not say no to torture: [Quoting the NYTimes piece] "[Obama's] first choice for the job, John O. Brennan, had to withdraw his name amid criticism over his alleged role in the formation of the agency’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11 attacks." ...
Transition News 1/06
The Stump —
Obama courts Congress on his stimulus plan. Leon Panetta's expected nomination as CIA director is met with mixed reviews. Marc Ambinder interviews Tim Roemer, who offers a case for Panetta. Who's the blame for the Bill Richardson flap? Bill Richardson's return to New Mexico isn't thrilling everyone in Santa Fe--even some Democrats. Eliot Spitzer says Obama is planning bridges to nowhere, while John Dickerson says the PEOTUS is too slow on the stimulus. What could an Obama ...
More Obamarama Transitionalicious-a-Go-Go
Shakesville —
Leon Panetta, former congressman, Clinton White House chief of staff, and current head of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, has been nominated by Obama to lead the CIA. Not all the Dems are thrilled; Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Rockefeller, current and outgoing heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have raised objections on the ostensible premise that they believe the agency needs to be led by an intelligence professional, although I suspect at least part of the issue is feeling as though the transition team did an end-run around ...
Feinstein And Rockefeller To Obama: We Liked Bush’s Appointees More
Think Progress —
... . Panetta was selected for “his managerial skills, his bipartisan standing, and the foreign policy and budget experience he gained under President Bill Clinton,” the New York Times reported. ...
Heckuva Job, Barry
Wizbang —
... includes this interesting factoid: Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards proposed what he called "Brownie's Law" requiring that "qualified people, not political hacks", lead key federal agencies. Enter Leon Panetta, President-Elect Obama's choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta is recognized as an intelligent and capable manager, but you'd have to be pretty creative in order to claim that Panetta has any real experience in the intelligence community. Republican cronyism was touted by Democrats as a primary reason why the Bush administration was so ...
Panetta? Why not?
The Reaction —
By Michael J.W. Stickings Like Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan, and Creature -- three of my favourite bloggers -- I'm not sure what to make of Obama's surprise selection of Leon Panetta to be CIA director. His extensive White House (CoS to Clinton) and Congressional experience should serve him well in a position that is, like it or not, political, but I think the intelligence community is right to be concerned. The question is, after all, just how political is he, just how close to Obama? What is needed at the CIA is integrity and independence, not an ...
Change?
Discriminations —
They told me that if I voted for John McCain we would have four more years of what candidate Obama decried, in a March 2 2008, interview with the Washington Post, as “the politicization of intelligence in [the Bush] administration.”
They were right.
According to the New Republic last March, Obama
the candidate is throwing his weight behind the idea that the intelligence community (IC) should be an independent assessor of empirically-verifiable facts; that intelligence assessment is a ...
Leverett on Countdown: Time for Obama to Speak Out on Gaza Violence
Firedoglake —
Hillary Mann Leverett, former State Department and National Security Council official and Middle East expert, appeared on Countdown to discuss the continuing war in Gaza.
She's been a harsh critic of the Bush Administration's giving Israel a "green light" on ...
