0070
The name is Panetta, Leon Panetta, Agent 0070. Pejman Yousefzadeh, writing at The Politico, examines the announced candidacy of Leon Panetta as America’s top spy.
We have two wars and an ongoing effort to find, capture or kill al Qaeda leaders. We have a clumsy intelligence system where 16 different agencies are being asked to work in close coordination with one another while a National Intelligence Directorate whose bureaucracy is vast and purposeless and whose Director has a portfolio that is at best vague and at worst utterly ill-considered rides herd. There is enough uncertainty in the intelligence community to last the lifetime of several administrations. It would have been nice if the President-elect sought to introduce some element of order, experience and professionalism by nominating a Director of Central Intelligence who had deep and impressive experience in the actual business of intelligence–as a producer, not just as a consumer–and who could instantly command the loyalty of the intelligence community upon confirmation in the Senate and upon arriving at Langley for the first day of work.
Do read the whole thing. Yousefzadeh has a lot of information and opinion from working CIA spooks who are, shall we say, less than impressed with the choice of Panetta. I was more than a little surprised when I heard the news a few days ago that Panetta had the nod. The third Clinton administration is shaping up nicely, though, isn’t it?
By martian, January 8, 2009 @ 2:55 pm
It reminds me of when I lived in Monroe County in upstate New York. A new County Executive was elected and promptly appointed a new Director of Parks for the county. His qualifications for the job? He grew up down the street from a park.
Being a consumer of a service qualifies you to run the entire agency? By that logic I could be named Surgeon General of the United States because I have had regular medical checkups, surgical procedures and take medicine for my blood pressure. I could be Transporation Secretary because I own a car and have ridden on planes, trains and boats. I could be Secretary of the Treasury because I have bank accounts and have invested in Mutual Funds. Man! I didn’t know I was so qualified for cabinet level jobs!
Then again, we’re about to have a Commander and Chief of the Armed Services in a time of war who may have watched a war movie or two and had rubber bathtub boats when he was little.
By Mockingbird, January 8, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
That does it! I’m selling short.