Leon Panetta

AP: No Experience in New CIA Chief Shows Obama's 'Clean Break from Bush Administration'?
By Warner Todd Huston | January 6, 2009 | 10:18 AM EST

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "inexperienced is as inexperienced does." At least that is what comes to my mind when hearing that Barack Obama has picked the inoffensive, completely inexperienced and unqualified Leon Panetta to be the new director of the CIA. Really. Leon Panetta? The onetime director of the Office of Management and Budget Panetta, that Leon Panetta? This old Clinton partisan has absolutely no experience whatsoever with intelligence gathering or the administration of the same. None. Zip. Nada.

Now, if George W. Bush had picked such an inexperienced man for any government position much less one at cabinet level, the media would have crucified him -- in fact, it did if you recount the Harriet Meyers for SCOTUS debacle. So, in "Obama's intel picks short on direct experience" does the Associated Press scoff at the pick? Do they lambast Obama for picking such a completely unqualified man for CIA in a day when we are besieged on all sides by enemies from whom our ability to gather intelligence is a major weapon of protection? Do they decry this pick of a man with not even the tiniest amount of experience for one of the most delicate and important positions of the day?

Early Show Finds Five Minutes For Travoltas, Nothing For Panetta Controversy
By Mark Finkelstein | January 6, 2009 | 9:48 AM EST

Barack Obama nominates someone to head the CIA whose major qualification is his inexperience. Even Democrats are dismayed.  John Travolta's son, sadly, died. So in its crucial first half-hour this morning, the Early Show naturally devotes almost five minutes to the Travolta story while ignoring the controversy surrounding Leon Panetta's appointment.  Far from revealing that even senior Dems like Senators Feinstein and Rockefeller have signalled their displeasure over the naming of Panetta, CBS' Chip Reid painted the pick as a sign of how Obama is briskly taking charge.  Here was the sum total of the Early Show's discussion of the matter:

CHIP REID: He may not be Commander-in-Chief just yet.  But Mr. Obama is wasting no time, on Monday picking former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, and retired Admiral Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence.