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Political Hack to Run CIA

A party hack with no experience in "extraordinary rendition", secret prisons, warrant-less wiretapping or torture?

I guess they could have done better, but surely could have done a lot worse.
 
Obama threw a few more crumbs to the Clinton wing of the Party, it seems to me.
 
Leon Piñata already has experience with WOMD's (wacky obdurate mercurial dames) as Clinton's chief of staff. Obama could have selected Caroline Kennedy for CIA Director. Her credentials leave Piñata in the dust. She has experience at keeping secrets like her positions on issues, her dysfunctional speech habits (considered classified by the msm until last month), and she had a father who fired a CIA Director.
 
Cicero said:
Leon Piñata already has experience with WOMD's (wacky obdurate mercurial dames) as Clinton's chief of staff. Obama could have selected Caroline Kennedy for CIA Director. Her credentials leave Piñata in the dust. She has experience at keeping secrets like her positions on issues, her dysfunctional speech habits (considered classified by the msm until last month), and she had a father who fired a CIA Director.
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Yes, yes, I know you're currently fixated on Caroline Kennedy for some reason. Do you have anything to add on this subject?

I find it difficult to believe you're going to give Obama a free pass on appointing an important national security role to a political flunky.
 
On this morning's local NPR current events chat show (Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio) it was observed that as a staffer for a Republican congressman (~1966) he had Intel oversight role, in Congress he was chairman of money committees that saw and supervised secret Intel budgets and the same when he was director of the OMB under Clinton.

As Clinton's CoS, he still had need to know on secret stuff and sat in on Clinton's daily intel briefing.
 
madurobob said:
A party hack with no experience in "extraordinary rendition", secret prisons, warrant-less wiretapping or torture?

I guess they could have done better, but surely could have done a lot worse.
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I see your point, but if there's one thing we should have learned from the Bush administration's many, many cluster-fraks, it's that appointing unqualified political allies to important positions is a Bad Idea.

"Heck of a job, Brownie" and all that.
 
Cleon said:
Yes, yes, I know you're currently fixated on Caroline Kennedy for some reason. Do you have anything to add on this subject?

I find it difficult to believe you're going to give Obama a free pass on appointing an important national security role to a political flunky.
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When Patterson selects anyone other than Caroline, my "fixation" will subside.

How about Val Plame for CIA Director and hubby Joe as Press Secretary?

If confirmed, will Piñata even last Obama's full first term? Bush 41 was CIA chief for less than a year. His credentials were no better than Piñata's.
 
I can't see how Leon is the best fit for this job, unless the intent isn't to improve intelligence capability and execution. What may be in the cards is a purge. Panetta, as hatchet man, fits the bill nicely.

Too bad. Obama needs a good, or better, CIA for his own job performance.

DR
 
It's the first Obama appointment I really have problems with.
Panetta has minimal qualifications at best for the CIA, and all the spin in the world will not hide the fact.
 
BigAl said:
On this morning's local NPR current events chat show (Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio) it was observed that as a staffer for a Republican congressman (~1966) he had Intel oversight role, in Congress he was chairman of money committees that saw and supervised secret Intel budgets and the same when he was director of the OMB under Clinton.

As Clinton's CoS, he still had need to know on secret stuff and sat in on Clinton's daily intel briefing.
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That's really not much in the way of qualifications, when you think about it.

Long-winded example:

I am a software engineer for a fairly small health care firm. Our CFO sets the various department budgets, including IT. He sits in on meetings with our CEO and CIO when discussions about major IT projects and priorities come up. He's good at his job, a fairly nice guy, and I'm glad we have him.

However, while these responsibilities make him slightly more knowledgeable about IT issues than our receptionist, he's still not qualified to be CIO, or take on the role of CEO at a software engineering firm. Being able to set a budget and know what projects are being worked on is a tiny, tiny subset of the skills the manager of an IT organization needs to have.


Your summary of Panetta's credentials reminds me of my CFO. Panetta sat on committees and reviewed Intelligent budgets, as Clinton CoS he probably knew about many of the sooper-sekrit stuff the CIA was up to, but IMO that really doesn't translate to having the skills to manage an Intelligence organization like the CIA.
 
Cleon said:
I see your point, but if there's one thing we should have learned from the Bush administration's many, many cluster-fraks, it's that appointing unqualified political allies to important positions is a Bad Idea.

"Heck of a job, Brownie" and all that.
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Oh, I agree.

But, its a tough call to make. Choose a CIA insider and you pretty much have to choose someone tainted by the CIA scandals of the past few years. Choose a CIA outsider and you have to accept a fair amount of OJT and accept the fact that he won't be able to make any material changes in direction until he has a fair amount of that OJT under his belt.

It looks to me like Obama meant to choose someone with a good history in Washington with at least a fair amount of experience in the CIA periphery so as to make the OJT minimal. He may have missed the mark a bit, but I can't think of anyone else who would fit those requirements either.
 
Cleon said:
That's really not much in the way of qualifications, when you think about it.

Long-winded example:

I am a software engineer for a fairly small health care firm. Our CFO sets the various department budgets, including IT. He sits in on meetings with our CEO and CIO when discussions about major IT projects and priorities come up. He's good at his job, a fairly nice guy, and I'm glad we have him.

However, while these responsibilities make him slightly more knowledgeable about IT issues than our receptionist, he's still not qualified to be CIO, or take on the role of CEO at a software engineering firm. Being able to set a budget and know what projects are being worked on is a tiny, tiny subset of the skills the manager of an IT organization needs to have.


Your summary of Panetta's credentials reminds me of my CFO. Panetta sat on committees and reviewed Intelligent budgets, as Clinton CoS he probably knew about many of the sooper-sekrit stuff the CIA was up to, but IMO that really doesn't translate to having the skills to manage an Intelligence organization like the CIA.
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Maybe, but isn't his first job to oversee the presidents agenda? This seems more like a criticism of politicaly appointed heads of such agencies
 
What qualifies someone to run the CIA?

Who is qualified to decide what those qualifications should be?

A software engineer for a fairly small health care firm?

Really? Why?
 
ponderingturtle said:
Maybe, but isn't his first job to oversee the presidents agenda?
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If he were Chief of Staff, or this were a Cabinet position, yeah, it would be. Those positions exist out of the need for the President to delegate specific responsibilities to.

But positions like Director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a bit different. More is involved than "this is my policy, go and execute;" the situation there is reversed. They're responsible for proactively informing the President what's going on. They're still answerable to the President, but their positionneeds to consist of more than a political agenda.

This seems more like a criticism of politicaly appointed heads of such agencies
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Yeah, there's a bit of that.
 
This is a great pick mostly because of those it pisses off, Feinstein and Rockefeller. Both who have been huge fans of torture and complacent in the abuses of US intelligence and its failures during the Bush administration. Lets face it the CIA needs an overhaul more than any other governmental branch and all of the "experts" from the intelligence community are well corrupted for supporting torture, illegal domestic wire taps and renditions. Panetta might not have been a member of the intelligence community but he has 20 years of dealing with, reviewing and making decisions based on there intelligence and its not like the Director is a spy but instead a politician and manager that makes decisions based on the work of others. Its not like this is the first time this has happened either George HW Bush was named director with much less relevant experience.
 
CFLarsen said:
What qualifies someone to run the CIA?

Who is qualified to decide what those qualifications should be?
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Good questions, really, and I'm really not inclined to come up with a "the ideal candidate will have experience in X, Y, and Z" list.

However, I can think of some:

  • substantial experience in managing large and small-scale Intelligence operations
  • thorough knowledge of security issues, risks, and priorities
  • Rock-solid foreign policy experience
  • substantial experience managing large organizations

That's just off the top of my head.

A software engineer for a fairly small health care firm?

Really? Why?
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Because the salary is pretty good, the industry relatively stable in the current economy, the people are fun, and Cokes are only 25 cents each.

(Seriously...What does this have to with anything?)
 
(Shrug)

Obama is creating a cabinet that, thank God, is more or less indistinguishable from Clinton's or even Bush's, completely ignoring the phony-balony "change" pre-election nonsense.

I agree that this particular choice seems bad, but the general idea -- a cabinet similar to the previous ones -- is sound.
 
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