Obama's CIA

I suppose we are all wondering about Leon Panetta's qualifications to head up the CIA. From the sound clip I heard yesterday he's a bit confused himself.

It sounded like he got the script from Caroline Kennedy!

But when you think about it Leon's had all sorts of experience in the covert and clandestine. After all, he was Bill Clinton's chief of staff for two and a half years!

Seriously, what is going on?

A couple of possibilities:
Hillary has Obama by the short hairs over something and is dictating these positions, especially where they interface with the SOS. (Frankly, that's hard to imagine but the Clinton's play the game very well.)

Another possibility is that we are on the Jimmy Carter path again. Human rights trump intelligence. Panetta's role is to dismantle the CIA or at least run it like a scout troop. Maybe. I hope not. The stakes are higher now than they were in 1977. Some of Obama's chatter about Gitmo support this idea. This goes beyond just dismantling the rendition program, and Leon knows that Clinton was more wicked than Bush when it came to torture. We just never had video before.

Then again, it could be just a weird call by Obama, like the TV doctor Gupta as surgeon general. (What did you expect from the American Idol election winner?)

One thing is clear; Obama didn't pick a strong CIA advocate. Stay tuned.