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Daily Beast: Leon Panetta’s an incompetent moron who’s jeopardizing U.S. security
hotair.com ^ | August 19, 2009 | Allahpundit

Posted on 08/19/2009 7:07:34 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

The Daily Beast is a center-left/RINO news outlet, so for them to kneecap The One this way is nothing short of shocking. So awful that I don’t even know how to excerpt it. Arguably the most damning story to emerge about Obama’s administrative competence since the inauguration.

Remember a few months ago when Panetta wet his pants about some supposed CIA plan to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders that Congress hadn’t been briefed on (but which had been public knowledge since 2002)? Funny thing:

According to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up.

The Daily Beast has learned that shortly after his electrifying June 24 disclosure, Panetta spoke personally with each of his three predecessors—George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden—and only then realized the mistake he’d made about the program…

Panetta ordered an internal CIA inquiry into the matter, headed by a widely respected senior official. In his private conversations with his three predecessors, Panetta “as much as admitted” to them (in the words of one CIA insider) that he’d misunderstood. Without explicitly apologizing, he assured the men—whom he’d in effect accused of breaking the law—not to worry:The whole thing would quietly go away. He told them that he’d been pre-briefed by the officer conducting the internal inquiry, and that when the report came out it would indeed back them up. It would come swaddled in vague banalities calling for improving communication between the CIA and Congress.


(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhocia; nationalinsecurity; panetta

1 posted on 08/19/2009 7:07:35 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
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To: Free ThinkerNY

You mean Inspector Clouseau?


2 posted on 08/19/2009 7:12:08 PM PDT by kempster
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I’ve never really understood the logic of being able to appoint any clown to be CIA Director, even someone with absolutely no CIA or “spy” experience of any kind. How can Leon Panetta be “the nation’s top spy” when he doesn’t know the first thing about the CIA?

I can understand that in the early days of Truman, directors had to be appointed since the agency was brand new. But now, I’d think that anyone who wants to be Director of the CIA should have to have been actually IN the CIA, in a fairly high position, in order to be eligible for consideration.

Am I missing something here?


3 posted on 08/19/2009 7:20:10 PM PDT by RepublitarianRoger2
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To: Free ThinkerNY

but I thought it didn’t matter that he had not intelligence experience. After all, he was a super manager.


4 posted on 08/19/2009 7:21:15 PM PDT by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
I can't help but conclude the Alquada has already found a hole in our security.
5 posted on 08/19/2009 7:21:59 PM PDT by oyez ( damnant quod non intelligunt)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Oh God, we are in so much trouble. I have never been so scared for my family and my nation.


6 posted on 08/19/2009 7:23:15 PM PDT by GoCards ("We eat therefore we hunt...")
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Incompetence in this administration...surprise, surprise , surprise...</sarc>


7 posted on 08/19/2009 7:23:39 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (TAZ:Untamed, Unpredictable, Uninhibited.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
“an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up.”
BS translation:
A political hack, desperate to please his DemonRAT masters, thought he saw a chance to smear a much more honorable administration. He ran to the media, divulged what he believed to be top secret information, and embarrassed the world.
He should be tried for treason along with every DemonRAT that made public comments.
8 posted on 08/19/2009 7:24:43 PM PDT by bitterohiogunclinger (America held hostage - day 163)
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To: RepublitarianRoger2

No one wanted the job.


9 posted on 08/19/2009 7:32:52 PM PDT by PghBaldy (http://www.blackfive.net/main/2009/06/president-obama-visits-wounded-troops.html)
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To: PghBaldy

Regardless, I’m saying that the rules (or lack thereof) that allow a Leon Panetta to be appointed to head a behemoth, complicated and highly sensitive agency that he has no experience in whatsoever...well, that’s just messed up.


10 posted on 08/19/2009 7:39:56 PM PDT by RepublitarianRoger2
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The daily beasts eating one of their own beasts. Fits the spirit of Obama’s Health “Care” bill. I’ll bet heavyweight Meg McCain was in on this investigation.


11 posted on 08/19/2009 10:33:26 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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