Wednesday, October 8, 2014

It's uncanny how the former CIA/Pentagon chief's memoir and book-tour interviews channel the frustrations of Democrats who want the president to succeed but consider him a near-failure









◼ Why Obama Won't Listen to Leon Panetta - RON FOURNIER/NATIONAL JOURNAL

...I agree with ◼ Washington Post columnist Dan Balz who considers the book a public service, rather than an act of disloyalty.
Panetta comes to this memoir with a perspective that is almost unmatched in public life. He was born in California, the son of Italian immigrants, and began his public service as an aide to Republican Sen. Thomas Kuchel of California during Lyndon Johnson's administration. He later worked as an assistant to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Robert Finch in the Nixon administration.

He became a Democrat in the early 1970s and was elected to the House from California in 1976. He rose through the ranks to become chairman of the House Budget Committee. He then served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency and was elevated to chief of staff in 1994 to bring order to the chaotic Clinton White House. He left government at the beginning of Clinton's second term.

Obama recruited him to run the Central Intelligence Agency at the start of his presidency. It was in that role that Panetta recommended and oversaw the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, which Obama approved over the initial objection of then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. When Gates left the Pentagon, Obama moved Panetta into that position.

Anyone who knows Panetta cannot be surprised that he has written a candid and incisive memoir. He has called things the way he's seen them in Washington for decades, combining wit, laughter and a zeal for political rough-and-tumble with the tough-mindedness of someone who came to get things done.
◼ Panetta Blasts Obama on Foreign Policy - Dan Riehl/Breitbart

Barack Obama's former former defense secretary and CIA director Leon Penetta is an author now and he may be writing an obituary for any notion that Obama is capable of managing a solid foreign policy.
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