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The Panetta Pick Isn’t So Hard To Understand After All

By: Francis Cianfrocca (Diary)  |  January 6th, 2009 at 05:48 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Sen. Dianne Feinstein made the innocent-sounding but in fact wholly-remarkable statement that the choice of Leon Panetta for DCI is unsatisfactory because the role should be filled by a person with enough experience to understand what the CIA actually does.

Wouldn’t it be equally remarkable to suggest that the American people should have elected a President with enough experience to understand what the government actually does?

We shouldn’t be surprised that a man like Obama would pick a man like Panetta for a critically-important job that he isn’t qualified to do.

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COMMENTS

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  • Rod_Patrick

    And we should attack later. In this case… Obama is nothing but MORE OF THE SAME.

    His promised CHANGE is just an election rhetoric.

    We can only credibly say that if Obama successfully installs Panetta starting January 25.

  • Rod_Patrick
    • bs

      and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Neil turns it off some time. However, I think a lot of us (I’ve done it) have done so to acknowledge our agreement with the writer.

      • Rod_Patrick

        Thanks for the clarification.

  • Scope

    Francis- Obama doesn’t have to understand what Government actually does as he has plans to change the definition into a whole new meaning which will fit his agenda. He has nothing to learn from the past, as we have never been a Socialist form of government before.

  • http://conservablogs.com/publiusforum/ Warner Todd Huston

    Well, now yer just talkin’ CRAZY talk! An EXPERIENCED president? Well, I never.

  • Kowalski

    So after eight years of screaming that the Bush Administration was using the CIA and its intelligence for political purposes, the Obama Administration decides, essentially:

    “It’s really OK, as long as it’s for OUR political purposes.

    So he installs a pure wonk, a Washingtonian steeped in nothing more than inside-the-Oval-Office politics as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

    Even his Wikipedia entry testifies to how unqualified he is: it’s barely a page long and mostly consists of places and people he’s worked for.

    This, to me, signals a couple of things:

    1) Barack Obama intends to blatantly politicize the intelligence community in America, and use it strictly for political purposes.

    2) Perhaps since Panetta’s most notable career accomplishment was (in terms of the Wikipedia article) standing up to Richard Nixon regarding the enforcement of the Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act, maybe this means that we can now expect the CIA to be involved in enforcing them.

    3) Since he was politically opposed to offshore oil drilling in California, perhaps as the Director of the CIA he will take it to the next level and use covert operatives to sabotage oil rigs run by companies he doesn’t like off the coastlines of America.

    4) By choosing someone so obviously ill-suited to the job of leading Agency, I can only guess that Barack Obama intends to gradually erode the morale and the competence of the intelligence community in America, prior to sweeping it into the dustbin of history.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      This pick may very well cost a lot of lives

      • Kowalski

        Maybe that’ll be the second time in her life that Michele Obama is truly proud of her country.

    • Steven

      Yeah, but MY Wikipedia entry is even shorter, (OK, it’s nonexistent.) but I’m vastly more qualified than he is.

    • Rod_Patrick

      Please consider the timing of our attack.

      Let’s wait for Panetta to “actually sit” as CIA Chief. Then we can start laughing off (or angrily scoffing) at Obama’s stupidity in his personal pick.

      But I doubt if it’s really a personal pick. It’s more of a concession among Dems… like sharing the loot. What a corrupt administration it will be!

    • jazzycmk

      …..during his press conference today about the intelligence community. He never used Bush by name but he was obviously referring to him.

      The one comment was that his (Obama’s) intelligence team will give him the “unvarnished” view of the information, as opposed to the version that they think the President wants to hear.

      Whatever dude. Haven’t been attacked on US soil since 09/11/01. If varnish is what it takes, so be it.

  • woodsman

    would a person be hired/appointed to a position of which they know nothing about? But then, it has already happened with the highest office in the land.

  • Kowalski

    He did it to avoid the backlash from the New York Times and human rights pressure groups.

    Period.

    Obama intends to hand the CIA to a guy with no specific intelligence background because he wants to curry favor with human rights organizations and the liberal members of the press.

  • http://jeffemanuel.net Jeff Emanuel

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  • Marcus_Traianus

    You will have to forgive me if I find having a member of Clinton’s administration anywhere near intelligence an offensive act. Why? Well these are the same people that were dissmissive of AQ and OBL in the entire run-up to 9-11. Then, true to form, made everyone else a scapegoat when 3,000 people died.

    Having Sandy Berger’s lunch partner as DCI is probably one of the worst, despicable choices I could imagine. It is also another reason this incoming administration should be called “Clinton II; The Final Destruction”.

  • bs

    …. the NYT, and this is what I found.

    In disclosing the selection, Democratic officials said Mr. Panetta?s gravitas and ties to Mr. Obama would give the C.I.A. a powerful voice within the administration, particularly in bureaucratic jockeying with the Pentagon, which has a much bigger budget and more bureaucratic clout.

    So “gravitas” and “ties to Obama” qualifies one to lead one of the most important national security entities in the US? I am prohibited from typing what I want to here because of the “No Profanity” instruction. Oh wait, I’m sorry – I missed this one – he also has “managerial skills”. I didn’t realize the ability to plop one’s butt in a desk chair so it doesn’t float away qualified one to head an intelligence organization.

    But wait, there’s more:

    An early test in Mr. Panetta?s tenure at the C.I.A. would be to determine the future of the agency?s detention and interrogation program.

    ?Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values,? he wrote in The Washington Monthly last year. ?But that is a false compromise.? He also wrote: ?We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.?

    So the truth starts to emerge. This was potentially a bone thrown to H’s far left critics who say they haven’t been represented. Panetta’s in there to eliminate torture. What a wonderful top priority for an intelligence-gathering body. We see evidence here:

    Some human rights groups praised the choice. Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First, said it was important that the new C.I.A. director be someone ?who recognizes that torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous and counterproductive.

    Shocker.

    • bs

      NYT article here

    • 1SGinTN

      that the Obama administration and the Dems will allow what now passes for ‘torture’ if it suits their purposes – just as they have been found to have double standards and hypocrisy on most other issues.

      Just as it once depended on what the definition of “is” is, the definition of ‘ torture’ can also be adjusted – if it suits their purposes. I think we have seen that no one is slicker than a Democrat lawyer when weasel words are called for.

      Anything that was once said for far-Left consumption will become non-operative, as necessary, once the inauguration is over.

      • $peciallist

        epic

      • izoneguy

        When they say:

        The president of the United States -
        Barack H. Obama

  • Jonah Shumate

    Obama was going to CHANGE Washington, and bring newness to it?! Here is a good quote from the Bloomberg article:

    Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the intelligence panel, said Panetta is a ?savvy? Washington veteran who can change the agency.

    Savvy Washington veteran, eh? Well, there are all of a sudden a whole lot of Washington Veterans getting appointed to some positions and the winds of change are being replaced by the winds of adminstrations past!

    • JustLeaveMeAlone

      Be afraid; be very afraid.

      • The_Gadfly

        as in “The Man Who Knew Too Little.”

        Except the script writers won’t be working for Leon, and we’ll all lose a lot.

        On the other hand, this could be an opportunity for another “McConell Comprimise”:

        “Harry, you are going to tell The Big O to withdraw this nomination or I assure you the confirmation hearing will bring up ALL the things that should have been included in the report by the 911 Commission but weren’t. We’ll also ask a lot of questions about what he knew about Sandy Burglar, I mean Berger and when he knew it.”

  • izoneguy

    is all that will result.
    The gains of the terrorist fight will be wiped away in ONE day.
    One day is all it will take for Obama to say “come on in and do what
    you want” – because this is the opening the terrorists have been waiting for. The left just does not get it. All the procedures & policies were set up to get bad guys. And it has worked. Why would Obummer pick a no nothing about intelligence to run an intelligence agency? Because Obummer has no intelligence, he is a political creature and will be eaten alive by the rest of the world.

  • peg_c

    Unbelievable, the utter nitwits and America haters set to run this country shortly. Every buffoon already proven to be incapable of governing and having no relationship with intelligence (in all meanings of the word) is amassed into a group that will go down in history.

    I’m now utterly convinced only something truly catastrophic can right our ship, because as a nation we have utterly lost our way. God knows how many will be lost. This Clinton Admin III will take us a long way toward that catastrophe if not bring it about altogether.

    Historians will marvel at the mindlessness of this age.

    • izoneguy

      Biden said it was coming. Do you think the terrorists are POed because we have such baffoons in charge now? Now if the terrorists attack – naw what am I thinking? Most leftys still think 9-11 was a right wing plot. One thing is for sure. If America does get attacked – whoever does it will get away with it. Obummer won’t do a thang….

  • Steven

    as a student at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He and Daschle were there trolling for military officers who would say something bad about the Bush administration and its conduct of the war. He didn’t get many takers.

    He told us that he started a foundation to encourage young people to get into public service, because so few young people seemed interested in being congressional pages and growing up to be legislators these days. I told him that if he really wanted to meet American kids whose hearts were set on public service he should visit Iraq. There are thousands of them there.

    I don’t think he considers military members as being involved in public service. What more do we need to know?

  • The_Gadfly

    He has dedicated himself to stopping torture, and everyone knows the CIA is the source of all torture. By putting Panetta in charge, the torture will finally end.

    Ronald Reagan said it best, “The problem is so much of what [our] opponent[s] know, simply isn’t true”

  • izoneguy

    Says who?

  • $peciallist

    (thanks izoneguy…i’ve been waiting for an opening for this pic..lol)

    • izoneguy

      LOLOLOLOL

    • woodsman

      Rosy has never looked better.