Out With The Bad, In With The…Worse?
Well, good riddance to Bill Richardson, who has always had hints and allegations of scandal, though usually of a more Bill Clintonesque nature, surrounding him. Richardson was far too much of a ‘fair trader’ for my tastes, anyway (tough break for New Mexico, though, looks like they’re still stuck with him for now).
But how in the world can you possibly justify the appointment of Leon Panetta to head the CIA given the importance of intelligence at this moment in time? Leon Panetta is a very nice man who is most known for serving as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, but there is nothing at all in his background to suggest he is the man for THIS job. Dianne Feinstein is right:
“My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time,” the California Democrat said.
Joe Klein says the pick ’smells of desperation’, and an anonymous ex-spook probably says it best:
“I find the choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA a curious one,” one well-connected former spy tells Danger Room. “On the one hand, if you are looking to pick a nation’s top spook, it is generally a good idea to pick someone with more than a cursory exposure to the intelligence business. It is also more than a little annoying that we can’t seem to find a CIA chief that hasn’t spent all of their adult life playing politics.”
It’s an opinion that seems to be widely shared across the intelligence community. Obama could have done much, much better than this…
Just thinking: wouldn’t Jane Harman have fit the bill?
I mean, it’s not as if she was in the CIA over the last 8 years, making the leftards happy, and her experience in Congress would give her the qualifications.
She did support the warrantless wiretapping program, but I seem to recall that someone else already slated to be in Obama’s cabinet voted for that as well.
Jane Harman would have been fine with me, though I would prefer someone strong in intelligence but also with SOME executive experience…
What about Bob Gates?!
I agree on the need for a professional spook for the job in the abstract, but the reality is that the CIA has spent the last eight (or so) years operating under a policy of explicitly committing war crimes. So I’m not convinced any of the current pros make a lot of sense. Still… Panetta? WHY?!?!
The problem was, as Ryan said, anybody who’s had anything to do with the CIA for the last 8 years would have been unpalatable to the left, as would anybody who supported warrantless wiretapping,
tortureenhanced interrogation techniques, rendition, etc. Seems that Obama made the choice to go with managerial experience in such a climate, in hopes that such experience would be broadly applicable to many agencies. The judgment may well be wrong, and I won’t be there to apologize for it if it is, but Joe Klein has got some ’splainin to do if he wants to back up the “desperation” charge.How’s about we give Obama the benefit of the doubt (did I just write that?), to wit: he chooses a proven manager, who is a non-spook, to run the agency because anyone that has been in the agency is invested in, if not the author of, activities that Obama finds objectionable and so could not be counted on to change those activities as quickly and completely as the President wants? Other than his non-spookyness, Panetta is unassailable. There is the matter of Obama voting for warrantless wiretaps, but I’m going to ignore that at this point.
Who cares. The CIA is worthless and always has been.
Name 5 things the CIA has ever gotten right. Name 3. Name 1.
I will say that Bob Gates must be laughing hs a** off today. The Defense Intellingence Agency and National Security Agency at Defense already dominate. The tired old man at CIA and the career sailor at DNI wil not change that. In fact., it will get a lot worse for the crappy CIA.
Those of us that think choosing an outsider to head up Intelligence is a good move are not alone:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0109/Neocons_for_Panetta.html
as the author says, not sure Obama wants these guys as friends, but, so be it.
George H W Bush had no intelligence experience before running the CIA, and he did a pretty good job as far as I can tell.
Well, he was the UN Ambassador and the envoy to China – that’s more relevant experience, in my view, than Chief of Staff, which is a purely managerial position…