Leon Panetta is Obama's pick for CIA director

[qrayjack]

Leon Panetta is Obama's pick for CIA director

Former California congressman and Clinton aide has little experience with spy agencies. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicates she might oppose the pick.

By Greg Miller and Christi Parsons, LA Times

Reporting from Washington -- President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, a former California congressman with little experience on intelligence matters, to serve as the next director of the CIA, according to Democratic officials familiar with the decision.

The selection puts the prominent Democrat in charge of an agency that has been at the center of a storm of criticism in recent years, including the intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks and the aggressive tactics that were embraced in their aftermath.

MKORE

And with this pick I am ever more suspicious of Obama's motives in building an administration of Clintonistas. Leon Panetta head of the CIA for God's sake? Dear hearts, something is rotton in Denmark.

[makamends]

And with this pick I am ever more suspicious

Might be good to know this bunch better.

Obama's Cabinet

[qrayjack]

Panetta as CIA chief make perfect sense to Democrats. It is integral with their determination to politicize everything they can get their grubby little hands on. The problem they ignore is that in so doing, in creating just another government bureaucracy, it becomes paralyzed by bureaucratic garbage to point it is unrecognizable and disfunctional. That's pretty damned scary when it's applied to the CIA.

[ExAmish Patriot]

The worst pick I could have imagined. When I think of the coming years and the dangers we face, this is about as scary as it gets. I can't help but feel that we have trouble looming. This group will destroy what Bush has built up over the last 6 or 7 years, the very things that have kept us safe will be tampered with to the point where they will become useless.

[ddrinsp]

All you need to get an appointment to the Obama administration is partisan loyalty -- actual experience or expertise for the job is not required.

One would think that the main prerequisite for the Director of CIA would be to have intelligence gathering experience. The pick of Panetta conveys the message that the Obama Administration is more interested in politicizing issues instead of protecting the American people. Welcome to the Obama years!

[Cynical Pete]

The professionals allowed 9/11 to happen, maybe the amatuers will do better.

[FlaJim]

Panetta is not quite the worst pick, ExAmish. Anti-American Patrick Leahy would fill that bill.

And there's really no Bush legacy in the CIA to destroy. The agency was allowed to continue virtually intact from the Clinton administration and a majority of the management there has actively opposed Bush's foreign policy and regularly leaked information to our enemies abroad and domestically (i.e. the New York Times).

The CIA hasn't been an effective intelligence gathering organization for many years due its mismanagement and politically shaded interpretations that favor Western European styled 'solutions.' Putting yet another stooge (like Tenet) in charge won't really have any significance.

[thomas]

"The professionals allowed 9/11 to happen, maybe the amatuers will do better"
Panetta was captain of the "professionals team Clinton" so he was part and parcel to 9/11 and other failures of our national interlligence interface. He is a Clinton insider who, when not playhing Chief of Staff, was busy making excuses for his bosses bad behavior. He has no experience running an intelligence agency, never mind running The intelligence agency. We need a professional, not a politician. Keep it up PEBO, you're gonna have a big plate of ^%&$% to swallow based upon choices. Change, yeah, right!
The Old Chief

[qrayjack]

We need a professional, not a politician.

Amen and well said Thomas.