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.
Given his background, Mr. Panetta is a somewhat unusual choice to lead the C.I.A., an agency that has been unwelcoming to previous directors perceived as outsiders, such as Stansfield M. Turner and John M. Deutch. But his selection points up the difficulty Mr. Obama had in finding a C.I.A. director with no connection to controversial counterterrorism programs of the Bush era.
i'm glad to see that Obama has chosen what appears to be a man of strong integrity. under Nixon, Panetta pushed for federal action on civil rights, when the administration favored dragging its feet in order to mollify southern voters (though to be fair to Nixon, he did get desegregation moving with minimal fuss). Panetta stood by his decision even though it cost him his job at the time. moreover, when he saw the Republic party moving towards the far right that dominates the GOP today, he left it for the Democrats in order to be able to hold onto his centrist ideals.
but Panetta doesn't, that i can see, have a strong operational background in intelligence. he served as an intel officer in the military, but a) that was fifty years ago, and b) four years of service, in and of itself, doesn't qualify a person to run a national organization.
Panetta does seem to have reasonably strong credentials in intelligence theory. he's a member of the Iraq Study Group, for instance. still, the CIA in this era needs to be highly active. someone who doesn't have much, if any, experience with operations does not strike me as the first choice to lead the CIA in that capacity. advise it, yes, keep the organization in line ethically and morally, certainly. but get done what needs to be done? i have reservations.
Depends what you're after. If Panetta restrains the CIA from committing actions like some of its previous excesses, he will have done the USA a lot of good. Which, like many regulatory functions, will not be noticed or praised.
the sense i get is that if he's as proactive as he needs to be, we'll be golden--we'll have our HUMINT fingers in all the pies we need to have them in, but we won't be getting our hands dirty (ten points to me for complimentary metaphors). but i'm not certain he'll be as proactive as he needs to be.
I think most of the criticism of Panetta as the choice is premature. Obama was hampered by the fact that virtually everyone who had intelligence experience was tainted on some level by the prior administration's blatant abuses of power. Anyone who was even ambivalent towards torture, warrantless wiretapping and rendition should have been and was disqualified. This left only outsiders, and Obama chose one who had experience doing damn near everything else in Washington and doing it capably.
Personally, I am pretty happy with the pick. Much better than Brennan. Similarly, I am overjoyed with the choice of the head of the Office of Legal Counsel: Dawn Johnsen. The more I read about her, the more I think she is my favorite appointee of the administration, and she's being appointed to one of the most important and under-appreciated positions in government.
The Office of Legal Counsel, inside the Justice Department, is probably the most consequential federal government office that remains relatively obscure. The legal opinions which it issues become, more or less automatically, the official legal position of the Executive Branch. It was from that office that John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others did so much damage, issuing now-infamous memoranda that established the regime of lawlessness that has dominated our political institutions over the last eight years. Other than Attorney General-designate Eric Holder and Obama himself, there is probably no official who will have a more significant role in determining the extent to which the Obama administration really does reverse the lawlessness and legal radicalism of the Bush years.
Today, as The Boston Globe just reported, Barack Obama announced several new appointments to key DOJ posts, including Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC. Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University, a former OLC official in the Clinton administration (as well as a former ACLU counsel), and a graduate of Yale Law School. She's become a true expert on executive power and, specifically, the role and obligation of the OLC in restricting presidential decisions to their lawful scope.
There are several striking pieces of evidence that suggest this appointment may be Obama's best yet, perhaps by far. Consider, first, this rather emphatic Slate article authored by Johnsen in the wake of the disclosure, last April, of the 81-page John Yoo Memo which declared that the President's power to torture detainees is virtually limitless. Her article is notable at least as much for its tone as for its substance (emphasis added):
I want to second Dahlia's frustration with those who don't see the newly released Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memo as a big deal. Where is the outrage, the public outcry?! The shockingly flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration continues to withhold other memos like it--all demand our outrage.
Yes, we've seen much of it before. And yes, we are counting down the remaining months. But we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law--and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come.
OLC, the office entrusted with making sure the President obeys the law instead here told the President that in fighting the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted. That Congress lacks the authority to regulate the interrogation and treatment of enemy combatants. . . .
John Yoo, the memo's author, has the gall to continue to defend the legal reasoning in this memo, in the face even of Bush administration OLC head Jack Goldsmith's harsh criticism--and withdrawal--of the memo. Not only that, Yoo attempts to spin the memo's advice on presidential power as "near boilerplate" . . .
I know (many of us know) Yoo's statement to be false. And not merely false, but irresponsibly and dangerously false in a way that impugns OLC's integrity over time and threatens to undermine public faith in the possibility that any administration can be expected to adhere to the rule of law.
Far from "near boilerplate," recall that the last President who took the view that "when the President does it that means that it is not illegal" was forced to resign in disgrace. . . .
Is it possible John Yoo alone merits our outrage, as some kind of rogue legal advisor? Of course not.
As Dahlia points out, Bush has not fired anyone responsible for devising the legal arguments that have allowed the Bush administration to act contrary to federal statutes with close to immunity--or for breaking the laws. In fact, the ones at Justice who didn't last are the officials (like Goldsmith) who dared to say "no" to the President-which, by the way, is OLC's core job description. . . .
The correct response to all this? Marty has several good suggestions to start. And outrage. Directed where it belongs: at President Bush, as well as his lawyers.
There's much, much more in the linked article. She is a complete and total badass and someone who appears to unflinchingly respect the rule of law. A novel concept, eh?
Her appointment paired with Panetta signal as clean a break from the immoral, unethical and illegal thuggery that the Bushies championed as it was realistically possible to make. I am quite enthused.
Subrosa said:
Her appointment paired with Panetta signal as clean a break from the immoral, unethical and illegal thuggery that the Bushies championed as it was realistically possible to make. I am quite enthused.
that's the part i'm happy about, and i'm also reassured by Panetta's record of being a capable jack-of-all-trades. but intelligence is critical enough, at this point, that his lack of direct qualification in this specific field still worries me.
Subrosa said:
Her appointment paired with Panetta signal as clean a break from the immoral, unethical and illegal thuggery that the Bushies championed as it was realistically possible to make. I am quite enthused.
that's the part i'm happy about, and i'm also reassured by Panetta's record of being a capable jack-of-all-trades. but intelligence is critical enough, at this point, that his lack of direct qualification in this specific field still worries me.
Intelligence is important, no doubt; but do we really expect the political appointee in charge to be a spymaster? There are plenty of people inside the agency, in the civil service, that can be as capable as they need to be (pending worries about assholes in the civil service, but I have the feeling there will be shakeups in that sector). Panetta as a choice is interesting because it points to the choice as a responsible manager, rather than an intelligence professional.
fountainofdreams said:
Intelligence is important, no doubt; but do we really expect the political appointee in charge to be a spymaster? There are plenty of people inside the agency, in the civil service, that can be as capable as they need to be (pending worries about assholes in the civil service, but I have the feeling there will be shakeups in that sector). Panetta as a choice is interesting because it points to the choice as a responsible manager, rather than an intelligence professional.
i wouldn't expect the DCIA to be running his own assets, obviously. but think of it like coaching--you don't necessarily have to have played in order to coach well, but it certainly helps. if your favorite team gets a new coach, and he's never actually played the game, well, it's something to be concerned about.
fountainofdreams said:
Intelligence is important, no doubt; but do we really expect the political appointee in charge to be a spymaster? There are plenty of people inside the agency, in the civil service, that can be as capable as they need to be (pending worries about assholes in the civil service, but I have the feeling there will be shakeups in that sector). Panetta as a choice is interesting because it points to the choice as a responsible manager, rather than an intelligence professional.
i wouldn't expect the DCIA to be running his own assets, obviously. but think of it like coaching--you don't necessarily have to have played in order to coach well, but it certainly helps. if your favorite team gets a new coach, and he's never actually played the game, well, it's something to be concerned about.
False analogy. In sports, the rules are known and so is the opposition and the fixture list. (I'll grant you that friends can't be relied on in either setting, though.)
motorfirebox
Pittsburgh, PA
March 2004
JAN 05, 2009 01:31 PM