January 6th, 2009 1:40 PM Eastern
America’s Talking: 2 P.M. Question
by Live Desk Producers
FILE: Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta faces reporters at a news conference in Monterey, Calif., on May 13, 2005. (AP)
Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff Leon Panetta has been tapped to head the CIA in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration, causing surprise and a bit of consternation from several individuals involved in the intelligence community.
Panetta is a surprise pick since he has no experience in the intelligence world, though as chief of staff he had considerable access to intelligence information and knows how the community operates.
We want to know:
Leon Panetta for CIA chief: right person for the job?
Post your comment below! (Please include your NAME and TOWN)
Mr. Obama’s pick for CIA chief is unfortunate on several levels. First, of course, is that Panetta lacks any experience and therefore credibility in the intellegence field. More importantly however, and quantum leaps more unsettling, is that this pick is indicative of Mr. Obamas lack of understanding of the vital role accurate and timely intellegence plays in our dangerous world. I can only hope that the two of them do not blunder into anything that the finest military in the world can’t get them out of, at the expense of our sons and daughters lives.
And Sandy Berger will be Panetta’s Assistant, This doesn’t even pass the smell test…. But Should we expect anything else from the Left
I feel sorry for all the highly qualified personnel at the Agency that have worked for years in their field and now will have to take orders for someone who knows absolutely nothing about Intelligence. The politicians, if let alone, will destroy America more than they have already. Our enemies must be getting a good laugh at us.
Putting Panetta in as DCI is like putting Richard Simmons as Head of Homeland Security. No offense to Richard but Panetta is an overly malleable figure who would sooner make a call to an oversight body than form an opinion of his own. He would be relegated to obscurity by his deputies. There is no way this will fly.
Dan
Perth Australia
NC USA
How about Jim & Sarah McDougal to head up the Dept of the Interior?
They had to give it to a career bureaucrat because no self respecting intelligence professional would take that job with a Dem president and Congress. All the silliness about Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the word torture having lost its meaning means the person who gets the job won’t have the tools to perform it anyway. These days if you don’t have a recliner in your cell Guantanamo, Amnesty International will say the inmate is being tortured. All this hamstringing will assure that there will be more clandestine rendition to lesser compliant countries. Panetta’s just a face waiting to get thrown under the bus.
“Panetta is a surprise pick since he has no experience in the intelligence world, though as chief of staff he had considerable access to intelligence information and knows how the community operates.”
No! Intelligence access does not mean an individual has the slightest idea of how the intel community operates.
Since Clinton’s administration and Panetta had access to intel, many things have changed in regard to how the community operates. Aside from not having any intel experience, two departments/offices have been created since Clinton left office. The Department of Homeland Security and the office of the Director of National Intelligence are added areas in which he has no experience and significant collaboration must be accomplished. Additionally, the support of military operations responsibility inherent to the CIA is paramount during the Global War on Terrorism, another two areas he has no experience.
Since Bill Clinton made his decisions based on polls and Leon Panetta was his chief poll gatherer, will the CIA be run by polls as well?
This appointment is preposterous. The CIA needs an individual with the experience and underlying “know how” to carry on in the international scene. Intelligence is critical to the safety and security of this country & the person at its head had better know what he is doing.
There is no way he is qualified for this job. He was probably selected by obama as a payback for past favors.
This is an absurd choice for CIA Director! No experience, too old and too stupid to turn down the appointment. Obama is a joke already! Just another political holdover from a morally corrupt Clinton administration.
ABINGDON, MD.
SUSANM
WHERE CAN I SIGN UP FOR THE C.I.A. ? GOOD JOB, GOOD PAY, AND I CAN LEARN ON THE JOB.
THANK YOU.
COMMENT:
”THE RICH GET RICHER & THE POOR GET POOR, AND THE GOVERNMENT MAKES SURE WE ARE POOR.