Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The whole world’s onto it.

WATIMES:

President-elect Barack Obama’s reported choice of Leon Panetta, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, to head the Central Intelligence Agency has provoked sharp criticism from senior Democrats whom the White House will need to gain his confirmation.

The Obama transition team did not return phone calls seeking comment on the nomination, which was confirmed by other Democrats and intelligence officials.

But the incoming chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dianne Feinstein - like Mr. Panetta, a California Democrat - issued a statement saying “my position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

An aide to the current chairman of the committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat, said his boss had similar concerns.

“He believes the director of the CIA needs to have significant intelligence experience,” the aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “He has also had the long-held belief that the director of the CIA and senior intelligence officials in general need to not be from the political world.”

The criticism over the choice of Mr. Panetta follows nearly universal praise for Mr. Obama’s earlier major appointments and highlights the president-elect’s first bumpy patch.

Mr. Obama recently has been criticized from the left for picking pastor Rick Warren, an opponent of abortion rights, to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. On Sunday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew as the nominee for commerce secretary because of a corruption investigation. Questions also have been raised about the role of Mr. Obama’s choice for attorney general, Eric Holder, in approving pardons at the end of the Clinton administration.

Mr. Panetta, 70, served in the House from 1977 to 1993 but was not a member of the intelligence committee. From 1993 to 1994, he ran the Office of Management and Budget. He was White House chief of staff from 1994 to 1997. He served in 2006 on the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended major changes in U.S. policy toward Iraq and the Middle East. If he is nominated and confirmed, he will be the oldest CIA director in the agency’s history.

Study group co-Chairman Lee H. Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a longtime colleague of Mr. Panetta’s in the House, praised the selection as “a superb appointment. I don’t know anyone with broader experience in both legislative and executive branches.”

Mr. Hamilton, a Democrat, added that Mr. Panetta is “highly intelligent, very constructive and searches for common ground.” As White House chief of staff, Mr. Panetta received intelligence briefings along with the president and participated in detailed policymaking concerning the intelligence community.

Politico:

Senate Democrats Grumble About Panetta Pick

President-elect Barack Obama is naming Leon Panetta, a former congressman from California and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, to be CIA director. Obama also has picked retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence, overseeing all the nation’s spy agencies, a Democratic official said.

The selection pairs a top military man with a quintessential Washington insider - but that combination appeared to irk some key Senate Democrats, who expressed concern that Panetta does not have an intelligence background. “My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time,” said California Sen. Diane Feinstein, who will oversee Panetta’s confirmation as chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), the vice chairman of the committee, also questioned the choice of Panetta. “Job number one at the CIA is to track down and stop terrorists. In a post-9-11 world, intelligence experience would seem to be a prerequisite for the job of CIA Director. While I will reserve final judgment on President-elect Obama’s nomination for the leader of our terror-fighting agency, I will be looking hard at Panetta’s intelligence expertise and qualifications.”

The surprise choice of Panetta brings one of the more colorful - and quotable - Clinton administration figures back to Washington in one of the nation’s most sensitive jobs.

But Panetta also will have the likely support of a generation of Washington insiders who know him as an affable and competent chair of the House Budget Committee, budget director during the Clinton administration and the chief of staff who finally brought a semblance of order to an unruly Clinton White House.

Former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton said that while Panetta isn’t from the traditional world of intelligence, he dealt with the issue on a daily basis as chief of staff and as a member of the Iraq Study Group.

In the last decade, the CIA’s products haven’t been received with confidence because of 9-11 and the Iraq War, but the Bush administration has begun making improvements in the quality of intelligence, Hamilton said.

“Panetta’s job will be to continue that progress,” Hamilton said, adding that he will also bring extensive managerial skills to the job that has a huge budget and thousands of employees. “I think he’s a superb choice.”

“Leon Panetta is a smart, savvy DC veteran and a strong choice to lead the CIA,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official, said Panetta and Blair will make a “formidable” team and makes a clean break with controversial Bush-era policies. “It’s very, very important to them to say this is a new chapter,” he said.

The nation’s two top intelligence posts were the two biggest appointments left to be made by the president-elect, along with a replacement for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who withdrew as the Obama’s choice for commerce secretary.

An official said the timing of the joint announcement had not been decided.

Obama had struggled to fill both jobs, having to turn to second choices in both cases.

Panetta, 71, is currently director of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Panetta told the Monterey County Herald in November that had been consulting with top Obama advisers about White House appointments, but said he was unlikely to be tapped for a post.

“You can see a lot of chess pieces moving around,” Panetta said.

Before retiring in 2002, Blair was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command.

From Blair’s biography: “During his 34-year Navy career, Admiral Blair served on guided missile destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and commanded the Kitty Hawk Battle Group. Ashore, he served as Director of the Joint Staff and as the first Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support at the CIA. He has also served in budget and policy positions on the National Security Council and several major Navy staffs. A 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Blair earned a master’s degree in History and Languages from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and served as a White House Fellow at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

From Panetta’s biography: “From 1989 to 1993, Panetta was chairman of the House Committee on the Budget. He also served as a member of that committee from 1979 to 1985. … Panetta left Congress in 1993, at the beginning of his ninth term, to become Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the incoming Clinton administration. Panetta was appointed Chief of Staff to President Clinton on July 17, 1994, and served in that position until January 20, 1997.”

(H/T MsUnderestimated)