slate.com - 1/7/2009
—
Leon Panetta. Click image to expand. Leon Panetta The puzzler of the hour: Why is Barack Obama picking Leon Panetta , a former congressman and White House official with no intelligence experience, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency? Nothing definitive can be said here—the Obama ...
yglesias.thinkprogress.org - 1/6/2009
—
yglesias.thinkprogress.org —
Leon Panetta’s served in congress, served in the
military, served as Chief of Staff in the White
House; he’s served on blue ribbon commissions and worked for politicians of both parties. And Barack Obama wants him to be CIA Director. ...
(more)
The Panetta Pick
sfgate.com - 1/7/2009
—
sfgate.com —
Feinstein - the new chairwoman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, who will oversee Panetta's confirmation hearings -
raised eyebrows when she expressed surprisingly sharp disapproval of Panetta as nominee for CIA chief on Monday. She said that "the ...
(more)
Why Feinstein broke with Obama on Panetta
Comments
Blog Reactions
Getting The Panetta Pick
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
A useful reading of the tea-leaves from Fred Kaplan.
Rounding Up on Panetta
Talking Points Memo —
Here Fred Kaplan makes the case for the appointment in Slate. Elana Schor got an impromptu interview with Sen. Feinstein who seemed to soften her initial coolness toward the appointment and suggested she might be more receptive if Obama kept on the CIA's current #2 guy Stephen Kappes in his current role. And this late piece in the Times quotes unnamed transition officials saying that Pres-Elect Obama does intend to do that. So presumably everybody has enough wiggle room here to avoid any sort of big fight.
There are a lot of fairly ...
Lining up Panetta support
Political Animal —
... , and Feinstein had "softened her initial stance on the Panetta nomination" by late afternoon. As for the merit of the nomination itself, Slate 's Fred Kaplan had a good piece on what Panetta will bring to the agency. Kaplan noted an email from Richard Clarke, who reminded him that Panetta, throughout the 1990s, "was one of a very few people who knew about all of the covert and special-access programs." Clarke's first point is crucial -- Panetta knows, from experience, what a president wants and needs from intelligence reports, so he could represent the agency's views more ...
It's Torture, Stupid: Why Obama Picked Leon Panetta to Head the CIA
Politics Daily —
... Fred Kaplan has a good piece at Slate today laying out a theory as to the calculus Barack Obama used to pick former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as his nominee to head up the CIA: ...
Related Content
Leon Panetta for CIA?
pajamasmedia.com 1/6/2009 — Leon Panetta, a former congressman with no intelligence experience, has been tapped to run the CIA in the Obama Administration.
It is hard to know what is worse: the rampant Washington insiderdom or the shocking lack of experience. Panetta did not ...
Obama names Panetta for CIA
(AP)
news.yahoo.com 1/9/2009 — AP - President-elect Barack Obama has introduced his choices for CIA chief Leon Panetta and national intelligence director retired Adm. Dennis Blair.
Questions for Panetta
weeklystandard.com 1/16/2009 — Eli Lake has an excellent piece in the Washington Times today sifting through Leon Panetta's record on rendition as Clinton's chief of staff. Panetta, Obama's nominee to head the CIA, will face confirmation hearings next week. As Lake points out, ...
Re Panetta
corner.nationalreview.com 1/6/2009 — Angelo Codevilla, author of the new book Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft, tells NRO:
Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels ...
Leon Panetta as CIA Director
outsidethebeltway.com 1/6/2009 — Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff. (Kevin Wolf/Associated Press)
When I saw the news yesterday afternoon that Leon Panetta was Barack Obama’s pick to head the CIA, I decided to hold off on posting and go ...
Senate Confirms Panetta As CIA Director
npr.org 2/13/2009 — The Senate confirmed Leon Panetta as director of the CIA on Thursday, placing the nation's top spy agency in the hands of a government veteran valued for his skills as a lawmaker and policy manager rather than as an expert at intelligence-gathering ...
What Did Leon Panetta Know About Rendition And When Did He Know It?
redstate.com 1/10/2009 — Thus far, defenders of Director-designate of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta make the following points in defense of the proposition that he would make a good DCI:
In response to arguments that Panetta is not experienced, Panettaphiles tell us ...
Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
