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The notion of Clinton-era hack Leon Panetta as a James Bond super-spy is enough to inspire laughter, but Philip Klein reports that Obama's choice is causing serious worry at the CIA:"Everybody is shocked and concerned about his lack of any intelligence experience," a former senior officer at the CIA told [The American Spectator], asking that his name be withheld because he still does some work with the agency. "What kind of signal is this sending?" . . .Read the whole thing.
"People think the left-wing bloggers are running the asylum now," the ex-CIA official lamented. "They want to completely neuter the agency."
UPDATE: Press briefing today:
[Obama] "calls Panetta "one of the finest public servants of our time." And in response to some questions about Panetta's experience, Obama says "he has handled intelligence daily at the highest levels."As any student of the Clinton administration knows, they completely botched the effort against al-Qaeda, so citing Panetta's experience in the Clinton White House is not an argument in his favor.
After seeing how the CIA has conducted itself throughout the Bush administration - no other agency ever demonstrated such institutional arrogance, incompetence, insubordination and political sabotage of the President - they cannot complain about ANYTHING the incoming President does to protect himself and constrain them.
ReplyDeleteObama is not an idiot. He may often be wrong, but he isn't stupid and will do what he can to constrain this rogue agency.
S'awright, Stace. We're big fans of yours over at my joint. Keep up the good work, buddy.
ReplyDelete