Leon Panetta for CIA Chief...You've Got to be Kidding

I spoke earlier about how Obama's dovish foreign policy position has caused him to have great difficulty in filling the CIA chief post. I couldn't possibly imagine just how much difficulty he was having until I read he had chosen former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday.

Mr. Panetta has a reputation in Washington as a competent manager with strong background in budget issues, but has little hands-on intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe, but one that has been buffeted since the Sept. 11 attacks by leadership changes and morale problems.

This pick isn't merely absurd and stupid, but it is reckless and dangerous. Panetta is a career politician and frankly a career partisan hack. In another department, that wouldn't be so bad. Yet, he has just been picked as the head intelligence gatherer. For this new position, he brings exactly zero years and zero months of experience in intelligence gathering. If there has ever been a CIA chief less qualified, I can't think of that person.

Here is a quick comparison. The current CIA chief is Michael Hayden. Prior to being tapped as CIA chief, Hayden was a career military official and ultimately a four star general. He also spent six years as head of the NSA from 1999-2005. That's an individual qualified to be the chief intelligence gatherer. The only intelligence that Panetta knows how to gather is on political opponents.

Now, let's just set some context so that everyone understands just how dangerous this is. Intelligence gathering is dangerous, difficult, and very tricky. Now, someone with no experience will be in charge of ultimately approving operations, techniques, budgets, and mostly the general direction of the agency. Career spies who have risked their lives more times than they would care to remember will now be taking orders from ultimately a career partisan political hack. To say that this will crush the morale of the agency is an understatement. Tapping Panetta is nothing more than giving the finger to the agency. It is outrageous and it must not happen. The CIA chief is not some ceremonial title. This is not the ambassadorship of Luxembourg. This is the chief intelligence gatherer and President Designate Obama has just told the American people just how little priority he places on intelligence gathering.

Now, if this were peace time, there might be some room to dismiss this. It's not. The CIA is on the front lines in gathering intelligence in stopping the next attack. Now, a partisan political hack is the head intelligence gatherer. That is frankly the difference between thousands of people dying in an attack and an attack being thwarted. Everyone must unite so that this pick is withdrawn immediately.