Top spook missed Lewinsky "connection"
Obama's A Bumpy Start
Excerpt:
Next, look at Obama's soon-to-be-announced nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA. To hear the spooks tell it, this is a little like asking Mr. Rogers to run an L.A. gang: he knows a neighborhood, just not that one. Obama & Co. wanted someone free of torture taint, but wound up with a guy who, as Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff, didn't have enough gumshoe in him to suss out the role of Monica Lewinsky.
The Democratic committee chairs were not amused, especially when they weren't consulted; they weren't because they would have objected, which they did after they got the news (as often happens) from Andrea Mitchell.
Comment: Good point ... if he was ignorant of the Monica / Bill flirtations (and much worse), how can this guy lead the CIA?
I'm no fan of Panetta, but given the credible allegations levied against the Clintons, I have the hunch that maybe what Obama likes about him is that...maybe he knows how to keep things quiet. He might be a better pick than we'd guess.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, part of what he kept quiet was the completely abyssmal way the Clintons did foreign intelligence. Sigh.