Posted on 02/11/2011 7:06:51 AM PST by Mayr Fortuna
I think it is fair to say that a lot of the higher-echelon government jobs, particularly in the Federal Government, are sui generis. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
A AH Like this Leon Panneta, would possibly advise your so called President to nuke someone based on MESSNBC News!
In his defense, it seems like the only one in the world who knew what Mubarak was going to say last night was Mubarak.
Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame and the long list of political maneuverers has culminated in Leon Panetta, a partisan Democrat and Washington insider with no record of ever doing anything good or being right about anything.
Get rid of the 80% of the CIA that is just a waste of taxpayer money and start with a new group of competent intelligence professionals.
those are some pretty hot Crazy Eyes
I know! Check my tagline
Does Leon Panetta actually tie his own shoe’s?
No.
While every agency has its dolts, I'd wager the percentage is far higher at the State Dept.
As for what the CIA gives the government, it's like advising a five year old. You can tell them not to jump off the garage roof or put their fingers in the fire, but that does not mean you can stop them from doing it.
The State Department has a very high percentage of incompetents including the current Secretary. Most government agencies from Health and Human Services to Education etc are full of incompetents.
However, when taxpayers are paying billions of dollars every year for supposed intelligence and the director testifies before Congress that all he knows is what he watches on TV it is time to question whether all this taxpayer money is well spent. It is true that the politicians and the other “five year olds” who seem to be in charge in Washington are to blame. But the massive intelligence gathering bureaucracy has become dysfunctional.
For starters, like any CEO, the DCI will have other people who are following individual areas of interest. As an administrator, the DCI may not be familliar with the individual details of each and every operation in progress, that duty has been delegated.
But let me also put it this way.
What is the DCI supposed to tell them?
If you were DCI, and testifying before Congress in open forum (otherwise it would not have been quoted), just how much would you tell them you knew?
Would you risk the charge of 'contempt of Congress' for not providing further details?
There aren't a handful of people on Capitol Hill I would trust with any serious national security secret.
Aside from that, without the context of the question to which the response was made, I can't address the comment.
But the massive intelligence gathering bureaucracy has become dysfunctional.
No argument there is disfunction present. Much of the business is 'What if?' and shades of gray in a fluid and often unclear world.
But part of the disfunction is induced from within other aspects of the Government, and that goes back to the Gorelick Memo, the squelching of Able Danger, and other activities which have been directed at the Intelligence community for the purpose of concealing other internal Executive (and possibly Legislative) Branch behaviours which have had a cumulative and negative effect on the country.
While it also eliminates the tendency for 'follow-the-leader' and 'echo chamber' intelligence projections, stovepiping data is different from stovepiping the interpretations.
Realize what seems inefficient can be the redundancy inherent in having multiple channels within even one agency, isolated, with separate sources, but that redundancy also cuts down on the chances of an entire operation being compromised with one error or leak, and otoh, multiple people reaching the same conclusion independently can refute or verify conclusions.
It may seem disfunctional to not put all the eggs in one basket, but it is also prudent.
I'll accept that sort of disfunction over the sloppy machination and fraud present in others--at least the intelligence community has a Constitutional purpose, involved in the mutual defense. Much of the Government does not even have that.
The politicians have consistently undermined our intelligence operations and have have weakened the intelligence gathering operations while increasing the size of the bureaucracy.
Panetta is a partisan scumbag who has never been honest or right about anything in his entire life.
Most of Panetta's positions involved toeing the Party Line somewhere, and he is an old hand at that. This one, however, is different.
DCI involves a job in which you can't hurt the other party (much) without hurting your own, because they are both in the same boat.
The most you can do is shift a little blame.
Considering the present Dems aren't even as benevolent as the Clinton Administration and may be outright anti-American, I'm not sure Panetta doesn't realize his job is to help keep the whole boat from sinking, and drilling holes in the other end to make 'them' look bad doesn't keep either end afloat in the long run.
In that sense, this is a unique position for him, and from what I hear from nonmedia sources, he is doing a reasonably good job.
Of course, the MSM and the rest of the Exec Branch can only hide their mis/malfeasance by putting the spotlight on the CIA and shifting blame onto the agency (as in 'they didn't tell us'--which cannot be confirmed nor denied because what was said was likely classified), which also serves the purpose of further disabling intelligence apparatus to this country's detriment, as well as the excuse to plant more moles/leakers which will have to be ferreted out and sidelined, consuming agency resources.
Recall, if you will, that the only person the press has 'loved' more than Hillary or Bill recently has been Obama.
Whoever the MSM is taking their marching orders from does not have the best interests of the United States of America at heart, and anyone they can defame in pursuit of their ends, they will.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.