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WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's a new, yet familiar, face of female political power in Washington.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is the incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the first woman to hold the job.

But Feinstein, a veteran of many skirmishes on Capitol Hill, didn't wait to take the gavel before asserting her prerogatives in the opening days of the 111th Congress.

Her public pronouncements on President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA and on the controversy surrounding his open Illinois Senate seat earned her an apology from Obama and tart words from her own party leader.

They also said plenty about the tenacious, strong-willed woman who will play a key role in shaping Obama's plans to restore credibility and morale to U.S. intelligence operations -- presuming she doesn't run for governor of California instead, as many Democrats in her home state hope she will.

"I have reached a stage in my life where I'm going to speak out and I'm going to say what I think is right," Feinstein, 75, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

"My view is 15 years into it I've got some fair judgment about what the law is."

Earlier in the week Feinstein, who's served in the Senate since 1992, had become the first Senate Democrat to say publicly that Roland Burris should be seated in the Senate despite the taint of corruption surrounding the man who appointed him, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Feinstein's position put her at odds with her party's leaders, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly denounced her position as "not valid."

But Feinstein said she'd spoken twice with Reid before going public. She said the Burris appointment was valid under the Constitution, and the idea that the Constitution would be trumped by Senate rules relied on by Democratic leaders was "an impossible dream."

It was the second dustup starring Feinstein in as many days.

When Obama's choice of former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to become CIA head became public at the beginning of the week, Feinstein said she hadn't been informed and expressed a preference for an intelligence professional to head the agency.

After Obama called her to apologize -- "profusely," she said -- and she also spoke with Panetta, Feinstein came around.

Both episodes dominated talk on Capitol Hill, cable news shows and blogs. Feinstein said she didn't set out to make news.

"I was asked a question and I answered it honestly, and that's what started it," she said.

To some longtime observers, it was vintage Feinstein.

"She says what she thinks," said Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic consultant in Sacramento. "And while 80 percent of the time that may be in sync with her party or other people's politics, there's 20 percent of the time where it just is her."

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