Leon Panetta a Really Bad Choice to Head the CIA…

  16 Responses to “Leon Panetta a Really Bad Choice to Head the CIA…”

1. 

   Pat says:

   1/6/2009 at 10:35 am

   Wow – elections actually have consequences. Snubbing the Bush-enabling Fienstein/Rockefeller camp suggests a return to reason in foreign policy. Obama is sending a clear message: the bureaucrats and elected officials who enabled, advocated, or instituted torture, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo and warrantless wiretapping just got their intel credentials yanked for the next few years.

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2. 

   Colin says:

   1/6/2009 at 12:58 pm

   Does this mean we are seeing a return to the Clinton era (at least as far as the CIA is concerned)?

   Bill Clinton gutted the CIA, and made it next to impossible for the CIA to perform its mission.

   Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Risen has much to say about the Clinton-era CIA:

   Upon taking power in 1993, Risen reports, the Clinton administration “began slashing the intelligence budget in search of a peace dividend, and Bill Clinton showed almost no interest in intelligence matters.”

   The agency cutbacks combined with presidential disinterest took their toll almost immediately.

   “Over a three-or-four-year period in the early-to-mid 1990s,” reports Risen, “virtually an entire generation of CIA officers – the people who had won the Cold War – quit or retired. One CIA veteran compared the agency to an airline that had lost all of is senior pilots . . . ”

   “Morale [at the CIA] plunged to new lows, and the agency became paralyzed by an aversion to high-risk espionage operations for fear they would lead to political flaps. Less willing to take big risks, the CIA was less able to recruit spies in dangerous places such as Iraq.”

   By 1997, the CIA had shrunk to the same size it had been in 1977.

   Neither 9/11 nor the numerous terrorist attacks that occured during the Clinton administration were the fault of any one person. But the fact is that Bill Clinton bears part of the blame. One cannot help but wonder how many Americans would still be alive had it not been for Clinton’s policies.

   For the last two years, Obama has not said much about foreign policy, but what he has said boils down to, “My primary goal is to make sure that other countries like us. In order to do that I plan to weaken America.” Obama’s choice of a Clinton crony for CIA director is consistent with this strategy. Apparently a few American deaths is an acceptable price.

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3. 

   No2Liberals says:

   1/6/2009 at 2:25 pm

   With an unqualified PEOTUS, selecting someone for such a serious position would naturally require an equally unqualified person. But it’s more than only that, it is to appease the rabid far left. B-HO has to throw them an organically grown, environmentally friendly chew toy, every now and then.
   John Hinderaker nails it.

   Obama preferred someone with intelligence experience, like John Brennan. The problem is that just about everyone who fits that description had, like Brennan, some involvement in devising the intelligence strategies of the last seven years. Those strategies, including but not limited to the interrogation of terrorists, have been spectacularly successful. Normally, participation in them would be a major plus in a candidate for CIA director.

   But the Democrats have committed themselves, for political reasons, to harsh criticisms of these and other aspects of the Bush administration’s anti-terror campaign. So Obama had to abandon Brennan’s nomination, and he is now stuck with someone who not only had nothing to do with the Bush administration’s highly successful policies, but was adamantly opposed to them. Panetta fits the necessary political profile, so he will be CIA Director even though he has no experience in intelligence.

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4. 

   Pat says:

   1/6/2009 at 3:25 pm

   Wait, it gets better:

   Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama’s transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

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5. 

   Pat says:

   1/6/2009 at 3:29 pm

   Even better…

   Obama also announced David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General; Tom Perrelli as Associate Attorney General; and Dawn Johnsen as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.

   Johnsen writing in Slate last year:

   I’m afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret. Remember that much of what we know about the Bush administration’s violations of statutes (and yes, I realize they claim not to be violating statutes) came first only because of leaks and news coverage. Incredibly, we still don’t know the full extent of our government’s illegal surveillance or illegal interrogations (and who knows what else)-despite Congress’s failed efforts to get to the bottom of it. Congress instead resorted to enacting new legislation on both issues largely in the dark. Whether a President ever may legitimately act contrary to a statute is itself a controversial question. I believe the answer is yes, in extremely rare and limited circumstances (circumstances that clearly were not satisfied in the FISA or torture controversies). But how can it be faithful to our system of government for the President to act contrary to federal statutes in secret?!

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6. 

   SB Smith says:

   1/6/2009 at 3:58 pm

   Leon Panetta always reminded me of Peter Sellers’ character the crazy German in sunglasses in the movie “Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Love The Bomb”.

   *

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7. 

   Sam says:

   1/6/2009 at 5:07 pm

   Don’t you have some fake children to make up stories about, Pattycakes?

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8. 

   Artruen says:

   1/6/2009 at 10:34 pm

   Patty, I always enjoy your comic relief. What next? Maybe your Messiah will fire some AG’s. Any bets?

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9. 

   Croc hunter says:

   1/7/2009 at 12:57 am

   suggests a return to reason in foreign policy.

   So what you are saying Pat is that you would rather be dodging bullets and shrapnel than being safe in the United States. With the the new administrations cronies being picked are we lining ourselves up for another attack? A farm animal has more common sense than you do Pat. Go do what rats do and leave us alone A-hole.

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10. 

    dianne says:

    1/7/2009 at 3:26 pm

    Yah, and we’ll probably end up with those terrorists from Gitmo right here in Kansas, about 30 miles down the road from me. Course the leftwingnuts would rather put us in harm’s way than keep those poor babies in Gitmo

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11. 

    Pat says:

    1/7/2009 at 5:37 pm

    CH –

    It must be hard to face the day knowing that Junior won’t be there to keep you from wetting your pants anymore.

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12. 

    No2Liberals says:

    1/7/2009 at 9:01 pm

    More evidence of the unhinged fearful leftards.

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13. 

    Sam says:

    1/7/2009 at 9:26 pm

    Well, now we know what Pat does in his spare time, in between making up stories about a rug munching daughter.

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14. 

    Pat says:

    1/8/2009 at 12:08 pm

    Beats a shit-eating infant-fucker like you anyday.

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15. 

    Sam says:

    1/8/2009 at 12:30 pm

    Wow, Patty. A little libtard rage. Typical reaction when a lib is caught in a myriad of lies and deceit.

    Just admit you lied (typical liberal behavior) and move on. Nobody will think less of you for it. Then again, it’s hard to think of you as anything less than whale shit.

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16. 

    Colin says:

    1/21/2009 at 8:28 am

    [Editor --- Colin, this is a deeply profound statement.]

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