Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, January 05, 2009 5:32:30 PM
Why not? He named a Clinton crony with no foreign-policy experience to be Secretary of State, didn’t he?
Ace wonders if this is about having a dependable yes man
at the top. Not really. It’s about having a guy at the top who’s
untainted by “torture.” So untainted, in fact, that he’s also untainted
by any intel experience whatsoever.
Here’s his chief qualification
for the job, as near as I can tell. Whether this means Obama’s ready to
junk the whole Bush interrogation apparatus or whether he merely wants
Panetta as cover to quietly retain certain parts of it
— or certain personnel, like Brennan, in lower-profile deputy roles — I
guess we’ll see. Meanwhile, Brian Faughnan at Red State forwards an
interesting passage from the CIA Library
on Panetta’s spending priorities while head of Clinton’s budget office.
Read it now, because the GOP’s bound to reference it at the
confirmation hearing. Exit quotation: “Was Panetta wrong about the
threats the U.S. faces in the 1990s, or was he simply too drive by
green eyeshades over national security? Either way, the picture isn’t
pretty.”