Obama to promote Michael Brown to head CIA Director

[Ramo]

Does anyone agree with this nomination besides Obama, Ramo and Boris?

Pat Roberts, ranking Republican at Senate Intelligence, for one.

[Darius871]

Richard Clarke, who presumably would know, disagrees.

Leon was in all of the important national security meetings for years, both as [Office of Management and Budget] director and as chief of staff. He made substantive contributions well outside of his job description. And as OMB director, he was one of a very few people who knew about all of the covert and special-access programs.

Ok guys, that's it, thread over, nothing to see here.



(No, I'm not being sarcastic.)

[Dinner]

That would seem to provide some in depth knowledge about how the process works.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Didn't realize that being the OMB directory meant that you knew the indepth information about intelligence... then again, you can say that by being OMB, you knew about everything (because it overseas the budget of everything).

I'm guessing that means Josh Bolton (current CoS to the Bush White House and prior to that, Director of OMB) would be a good CIA Director to y'all as well . At least Bolton's father was in the CIA .

[Dinner]

Of course there is a danger that this is "Resume Inflation" the way Hillary did it during the primaries. "I was taking sniper fire and single handed ended the war in Bosnia".

[Ramo]

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Didn't realize that being the OMB directory meant that you knew the indepth information about intelligence... then again, you can say that by being OMB, you knew about everything (because it overseas the budget of everything).

I'm guessing that means Josh Bolton (current CoS to the Bush White House and prior to that, Director of OMB) would be a good CIA Director to y'all as well . At least Bolton's father was in the CIA .

Given that some of us give a damn about a little thing called policy, not really.

But if you're going to pick someone from top of the current Bush Admin as DCI, Bolten's a reasonable pick (assuming Gates is still unavailable). BTW, the demonstrated competence of the person matters too. I'd trust Bolten, for example, more than Card.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course there is a danger that this is "Resume Inflation" the way Hillary did it during the primaries. "I was taking sniper fire and single handed ended the war in Bosnia".

Well that's what I'm saying about claiming OMB Director gives you some special intelligence insight. He oversees the budget, so of course he's going to know about clandestine spending. That doesn't mean he actually knows about intelligence.

I think the New Yorker's Coll encapsulates it well:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/01/leon-panetta-at.html

As to the Panetta appointment itself, it is unconvincing. The C.I.A. directorship is a diminished post, no longer in charge of the full intelligence community and subordinate to the Director of National Intelligence (who will apparently be Dennis Blair, a retired admiral.) Still, the C.I.A. director has four important jobs: manage the White House relationship; manage Congress, particularly to obtain budgetary favor; manage the agency’s workforce and daily operations; and manage liaisons with other spy chiefs, friendly and unfriendly. Panetta is thoroughly qualified for the first two functions but unqualified for the latter two. He seems to have been selected as a kind of political auditor and consensus builder. He will make sure the White House is protected from surprises or risks emanating from C.I.A. operations; he will ensure that interrogation and detention practices change, and that the Democratic Congress is satisfied by those changes; he will ensure that all of this occurs with a minimum of disruptive bloodletting. All good, but it is not enough. The essential problem is that Panetta is a man of Washington, not a man of the world. He’s seventy-years-old, spends his time on his California farm, and he’s been out of the deal flow, as they say on Wall Street, for about a decade; he knows California budget policy like the back of his hand, but what intuition or insight does he bring to the most dangerous territories in American foreign policy—Anbar Province, the Logar Valley, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas? Compared to his counterparts in Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Britain, etc.—the critical relationships in national security that the C.I.A. Director alone can manage—he is a relative novice not only about intelligence operations but also about the foreign-policy contexts in which they occur. The country needs a better clandestine service. The C.I.A. has taken in an unusually talented pool of young case officers who volunteered after September 11th—probably as good a young talent pool as the government has had since the nineteen-sixties. But the agency they signed up for has been battered around and led by revolving door. Panetta may make the White House feel more secure about unfinished bureaucratic and operational reforms at Langley, but he is unqualified to forge the next-generation spy service that a country with as many enemies as this one has needs and deserves.

Which is why I say Panetta would be fine as a 1-2 year guy. He can deal with some of the budgetary and policy stuff that the Prez-elect wants done, but then he's gotta be able to deal with the nitty gritty. Now, is there is a bad risk that those couple years of someone unknowledge and inexperienced in the nitty gritty could set us back. Yes. But that's the best option we have right now with the appointment set.

[Boris Godunov]

Does anyone agree with this nomination besides Obama, Ramo and Boris?

Neither Ramo nor I voiced agreement with the choice.

[Darius871]

Does anyone agree with this nomination besides Obama, Ramo and Boris?

I don't have any particular problem with it either. Not because I think he's a good choice, but because I'm enough of a realist to expect that 99.99% of his day-to-day responsibilities will actually be handled by substantive geek underlings and merely rubber-stamped by him, as is the case with the top tiers of any bureaucracy where career politicians just sit and flaunt their egos for a living. Anybody who thinks he'll be neck-deep in the details of any actual ops needs their heads checked.

[DinoDoc]

I'm not sure I agree with this clip but it does raise some interesting questions and answers.

Interesting in what way? It seems to be an incredibly simple minded analysis designed to support her idol's idiotic choice. God damn man it isn't as if the Clinton admin (who his admin seems to be raiding for appointments) was bereft of people who actually dealt with intelligence. But appointing someone who lacks any meaningful experience in the matters his agency will deal with (and I'm sorry Ramo but merely looking at the budget of the CIA doesn't count) simply because you wanna stick it to the Bush admin is beyond stupid. It offends me that anyone would find such drek interesting.

Not because I think he's a good choice, but because I'm enough of a realist to expect that 99.99% of his day-to-day responsibilities will actually be handled by substantive geek underlings and merely rubber-stamped by him, as is the case with the top tiers of any bureaucracy where career politicians just sit and flaunt their egos for a living.

Why not appoint the night janitor to lead Treasury, FBI, etc. as well then?

[Boris Godunov]

It seems to be an incredibly simple minded analysis designed to support her idol's idiotic choice.

Claiming Obama is Maddow's "idol" is another patently ludicrous statement.

[Darius871]

Why not appoint the night janitor to lead Treasury, FBI, etc. as well then?

It wouldn't bother me. At least he wouldn't be stupid enough to stick his nose into things he mostly pretends to know anything about.

[DaShi]

Why not appoint the night janitor to lead Treasury, FBI, etc. as well then?

He called, but you weren't home.

[Ramo]

But appointing someone who lacks any meaningful experience in the matters his agency will deal with (and I'm sorry Ramo but merely looking at the budget of the CIA doesn't count)

Nice cherry-picking...

Leon was in all of the important national security meetings for years, both as [Office of Management and Budget] director and as chief of staff. He made substantive contributions well outside of his job description.

[DinoDoc]

Nice cherry-picking...

I picked the only specific thing listed. If you wish to list any of the supposed contributions he made outside his job descriptions, I would be more than willing to listen to them.