NATIONAL SECURITY: Are We In Good Hands?

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On both Fox and CNN this morning, there was discussion that a lot of cabinet choices so far have met wide approval, but some of President-elect Obama's choices for sensitive national security positions have even a lot of Democrats raising eyebrows. With the exception of Robert Gates who has been asked to stay on as Secretary of Defense, it was said that any who have gone on record as supporting Bush policies in the area of national defense have been cut from consideration.

The latest nominee, Leon Panetta as head of the CIA, may be the most controversial of all. He served several terms in Congress and also competently as President Clinton's Chief of Staff, but he has no law enforcement or national security experience of any kind. Is he an appropriate choice for the CIA?

What do you think? Do we want people who are opposed to most or all provisions of the Patriot Act and who would stop essentially all secret surveillance, etc? Should concern be raised before this is all set in stone?

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@Foxfyre,

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What do you think? Do we want people who are opposed to most or all provisions of the Patriot Act and who would stop essentially all secret surveillance, etc?

No.

Quote:

Should concern be raised before this is all set in stone?

Concern that you are making up issues that don't exist? Nothing has prevented you from doing that in the past. I don't see why concern about it now will change that.

1. There are 10 titles to the act. Most of them were not controversial and no one has proposed overturning those parts.
Patriot Act
2. Secret surveillance isn't opposed. Searches in the US without court order is opposed. Interception of US citizen communications in the US without court approval is opposed.
3. ALL the CIA surveillance is supposed to be overseas and I don't know that any of their surveillance work is opposed.

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@Foxfyre,

Pfff. Anyone who supported Bush policies should be cut from consideration, b/c he was a moron who screwed things up for 8 solid years. You think that should be rewarded, adherence to those ideals?

Suck it up and let us run the place for a while...

Cycloptichorn

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On the theory that some realize that I am not making up the issue, here is a short account from Yahoo News:

Obama picks Leon Panetta to head CIA
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 5, 3:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON " Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA. Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord.

http://image.politicalbase.com/uploads/people/11000/10097/11567leonpanettainformalphotojpg_240.jpg

Does anybody else think the CIA chief should have at least some experience in the intelligence world? For that matter, shouldn't all appointees for positions related to national security have at least some practical credentials for those positions? Do such people exist who were opposed to or many all Bush policies related to national security?

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@Foxfyre,

The paragraph under the photo is mine....the rest is the news report.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxy,

Obama ran as a Change candidate. Obama was elected as a "Change" candidate because we, the American people, want Change.

The Bush administration was a disaster in many ways... the wholesale (and at times illegal) gutting of civil rights in the United States in the name of "National Security" was a travesty.

Yes. I want the Obama administration to be radically different from the Bush administration.

Most of us do.

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Quote:

Panetta is experienced enough to understand that the CIA was the victim of political manipulation under the Bush Administration. It was the Bush White House that cherry-picked the intelligence on Iraq, not the CIA. Panetta will have the ear of the new President to walk him through all of this, and make the case that there is no point in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Panetta will also serve as a good counterweight to retired Admiral Dennis Blair, the designated Director of National Intelligence who is unlikely to streamline the intelligence community or challenge the Pentagon's preeminent position.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1869824,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

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Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell addressed your concern rather handily last night. Here's the full segment:

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@ebrown p,

Well since President-elect Obama has zero national security and/or intelligence experience either, I don't know how the two of them communicating will be much help there regardless of who provides counterweight.

And thanks Butterfly. That is another perspective and it belongs in this discussion, but unfortunately it is from people who I usually regard as having too much ideological bias to be reliable in these things.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Well since President-elect Obama has zero national security and/or intelligence experience either, I don't know how the two of them communicating will be much help there regardless of who provides counterweight.

And thanks Butterfly. That is another perspective and it belongs in this discussion, but unfortunately it is from people who I usually regard as having too much ideological bias to be reliable in these things.

How do you regard yourself, one must wonder?

You do realize that Obama has infinitely more intelligence experience than Bush did when he took office; namely, because he is intelligent.

Cycloptichorn

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@Foxfyre,

That's too bad, Foxfyre. You might have seen that there are areas of agreement with your concerns; as well as some areas of disagreement.

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@Butrflynet,

No I did see that Butrflynet, but that does not change my position about the credibility of the parties. Lots of people I think are credible disagree with me and at times people I think are generally uncredible agree with me on various issues. So agreement or disagreement isn't the issue.

Example: Rachel Maddow conveniently left out of her short spiel on Bill Richardson that the 'concern' involved is a grand jury investigation that is predicted to go badly for our governor. I think a serious reporter/commentator would have mentioned that. Was it an inadvertent oversight? If it had been say Wolf Blitzer, I would say probably so. But this is common with Rachel because of what I believe to be her particular bias.

That's neither here nor there so far as the issues addressed, however. I do think it was a clip that belongs in the discussion regardless.

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a lot of politicians get elected and appointed to positions with which they are not familiar, this is why they have staff and advisors

now, if obama was replacing everybody else in the cia with people who had no experience with intelligence gathering i'd be worried

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Apparently, we have very low standards for our elected officials to live up to.

We have a President Elect with no executive experience and national security experience. I would think one would want to nominate someone who has experience in this area. Leon Panetta has none.

Obama has made some good choices, but this one is questionable.

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quote: Apparently, we have very low standards for our elected officials to live up to.

We did for 8 years. Now all that's changing.

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All I can say is...

Winning an Election is a wonderful thing!

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@edgarblythe,

Represented by the elections of Al Franken?

The Re-Election of the many criminals in the US Senate?

What exactly is changing?

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@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

Represented by the elections of Al Franken?

The Re-Election of the many criminals in the US Senate?

What exactly is changing?

The bums in charge are smarter than the old ones, and hopefully slightly less greedy. Certainly less scared.

Cycloptichorn

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

Bill Richardson that the 'concern' involved is a grand jury investigation that is predicted to go badly for our governor.

NATIONAL SECURITY: Are We In Good Hands?

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