Practically a guarantee that the shenanigans will continue, under his radar.

How about an insider who was one of the dissenting voices? Wait...google is still searching on that one...

Watch for all the Conservatives, who believed that a horse show judge was OK to run FEMA, become suddenly aghast that Mr. Panetta is "unqualified" to run the CIA.

Obama could not make a better choice than Leon Panetta. I believe if there is an honest man in America it's Leon.

Panetta for CIA chief? Very interesting.......does he have the cojones to go up against their entrenched heads already in place? Does he have what it takes to make the appointments necessary to restore credibility to a debilitated agency (which has lost most of their finest agents due to disgust and resignation or the politicizing of the agency and being forced out) also believed to be corrupt and complicit in torture? I've always viewed Panetta's personality as the exact opposite of, say, Rahm Emanuel. We'll see.....

Clinton was pretty much of a shit about civil liberties. The Carnivore program was a Clinton masterpiece (the thingy that Georgie 43 turned into his world wide wire tapping scheme.) Looks like Obama is still presenting as a right wing authoritarian with a centrist twist. Well, let him at least start the job before crucifying him. Still and all, does anybody else get the idea that his honeymoon period is going to be in hundreds of minutes rather than hundreds of days? Just sayin'

Wiki claims Panetta was:

"chief of operations and planning of the intelligence section" while in the Army........

Clinton -> Carnivore -> Panetta -> CIA wiretapping...?

Carnivore was an FBI program, and the NSA is listening to our cell calls, not CIA...which is too busy with all that black ops shit to bother with domestic civil liberties violations (?).

What would be encouraging: an insider who knows how it all works, with some demonstrated commitment to reign in the insanity (Tyler Drumheller?).

I'm not a troll and I'm not about to drive a stake in anyone's heart. I said it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy is all. That said, as far as I know, nobody has ripped that equipment out of the ISP's wiring rooms that the Clinton era guys installed, and the CIA, along with the rest of the alphabet soup, is working in the US. A knowledgeable intelligence insider who understands and obeys the law would be nice. A knowledgeable political insider who hacks around would be not so nice. I don't know enough to make a judgment. I'm just not terribly encouraged.

Leon Panetta wrote one year ago, on torture in the Washington Monthly:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.panetta.html

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Fear is blinding, hateful, and vengeful. It makes the end justify the means. And why not? If torture can stop the next terrorist attack, the next suicide bomber, then what's wrong with a little waterboarding or electric shock?

The simple answer is the rule of law....

Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.

We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances..

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Let's see if Panetta cleans house of the perpetrators.

Get over it, you two supported the Bush Administration and their efforts to codify torture. As a nation we will never live it down, just like the Germans can't live down Hitler and Nazism. You two did nothing good for your country. You could have stood up and stood against techniques used in the Spanish Inquisitions, you did not. You two should keep your mouths shut, you had your chance and you blew it, and you took a nation down with you. I for one will not forgive you. You are complicit in Bush's greatest mistakes. Hopefully, you can live with yourselves, the problem is you probably can, but me, I can't. You let us down.

Or even a Panda. Panda with Pancetta is tasty too.

Exactly.