The zen reason of Panetta

OP-ED: Why Leon Panetta May Be the Right Man for CIA Chief, By Mark Safranski, Pajamas Media, January 8, 2009

I agree with Mark here. To me, appointing an insider would be bad for the new administration and bad for the Intell Community.

I am very glad to see Panetta nominated.

Comments

[TriExpert]

Agreed. A cool, measured, sane look, in distinct contrast to the cast of almost all the comments that it garnered! (I'm WAAAY too thin skinned to risk commenting there.)

[large]

BUT . . referring back to a previous blog here, I believe . . We have found that "New Political Appointees" do little to "Change" the internal bureaucracy of any government agency.

Most often, of course, is that all management stays in place, so nothing much changes except the Head and some administrative personnel. As was stated in the piece.

Politics doesn't allow for the wholesale management changes that Corporations do when they change CEOs and upper management . . The Attorney General's debacle under Bush illustrates that . .

Plus, big internal policy changes, without the people to go with them, will generally cause mass flight or resistance from the middle and lower bureaucracy . . Just one of those things that go with career Bureaucrats and other assorted government employees . .

[Sean Meade]

yeah, i was surprised there were no positive comments at all and few that were intelligent

[William R. Cumming]

Having personal friends that are former (some long ago) station chiefs and sitting next to Richard Helms son during three years of law school (and bitching to him about his summer employment at the Agency) really gives me no accurate basis for judgment about what the Agency needs. Several childhood friends also retired from the AGency. But I think the common understanding in many levels of Washington is that even today many in the Agency have no idea how close they came post 9/11 from having a complete startover of the concept of the agency, and termination of the Agency and its personnel so that start over could happen. Clearly the Agency lost a crucial battle when it lost the NRO fight to DOD long ago. Satellite intel has now declined in utility to some degree as the whole of the organized violence clique realizes that you must burrow underground. Hizbollah not the least of these burrowers. That said if the CIA wants to be around another 50 years, Pannetta is just the type of leader they need. Hayden, as a retired 4-star, may have helped the clean-up but it will take Pannetta or someone like him to provide both institutional reassurance that the CIA is necessary and that it is competent as an organization, and maybe can even become what the public administration types call a "Learning Organization." Time will tell but the denizens of the Agency need to know now for sure that they are still on probation. They are lucky Gates is still at DOD. After all it is well and good to say that many of their triumphs are hidden and that must be so. But too too many of their losses have had profound impact on the United States and its future. Others can itemize those but many are ingrained in the public mind. Good luck to the agency and to their Director-nominee. This could be the last hurrah if it does not work out.