Seriously — if you’re surprised, raise your hand. Didn’t think so.

The fact that a far-left activist would be palling around with diehard enemies of freedom in their own countries and abroad isn’t the least bit surprising; it’s what makes the “liberal” moniker the utter oxymoron we all know and love.

Leon Panetta’s daughter is a perfect example. From Mike Waller’s blog:

If the adult daughter of a CIA Director-designate hangs out with sworn enemies of the United States, it’s a matter for the United States Senate to probe aggressively. And so the Senate really has to ask some very pointed questions about Linda Panetta, daughter of President-Elect Obama’s pick to lead the CIA, and her ties to Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Linda Panetta is a noted anti-military activist who has accused the US military of teaching Latin American officers how to torture. She has also been close to causes hostile toward the United States and friendly to the old Soviet Union, and the regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. …

This photo shows Chavez with his arm around Linda Panetta, while former Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega smiles on, at left. You saw it here first.

This says a few things about CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta. While a parent can’t necessarily be blamed for his wayward children, we think senators should ask the nominee to be the next CIA chief about his daughter’s support for sworn enemies of the United States. As a congressman, Panetta was pretty soft on the communist FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador, and Daniel Ortega’s Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. So father and daughter’s views do coincide somewhat.

Certainly any prospective CIA intelligence analyst would be grilled pretty hard before getting a security clearance if it was known that his or her sister or daughter was an anti-US militant who aided and abetted Chavez and the Sandinistas. And even then he might not get a very high clearance. It’s only fair to hold Leon Panetta to at least the same standards that apply to ordinary CIA analysts and operators.

The Senate has an obligation to nail down this problem when it considers confirming Leon Panetta to lead the CIA.