This is the kind of thing one uses one’s inside voice to comment about. And if one has to speak up about it, one speaks up about it privately.

Pardon my snark, but if Leon Panetta were more versed in national security and intelligence matters–instead of merely being parachuted into a national security/intelligence position–he might have known this. And while I had hoped that his experience as White House Chief of Staff during the Clinton Administration would have been helpful in navigating these policy thickets, it would appear otherwise.

Besides pledging not to interfere in the CIA’s day-to-day intelligence operations, [new Director of Central Intelligence Leon] Panetta said he would keep on Deputy Director Steven Kappes and three other top officials at the spy agency. He also said he would encourage differing opinions within the agency and would brief the full House and Senate intelligence committees as much as possible, not just their top members.

–Source. (Emphasis mine.) What good is a DCI who does not get involved in intelligence operations?

Link:

President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, Leon E. Panetta, said Friday that he intended to test the claims by current agency officials that coercive interrogation methods were effective in getting terrorism suspects to talk.

Panetta’s comments were the latest indication that the Obama administration may restore some of the CIA’s authority to use interrogation techniques that go beyond those allowed for the U.S. military.

But Panetta emphasized that he would also examine the downside of using coercive methods, and that the agency would operate within the law.

Yup. Pretty equivocal indeed. Hope and Change may have just taken another hit.