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I have given Barack Obama a pass since his investiture as 'President-Elect'. He was elected by a majority of government-educated, government-dependent Americans, after all. He is supposed to have an IQ of around 130, but as that is a relative measurement I am not sure just what is is worth. He won't even allow the release of his education records from Harvard as they could call into question his citizenship qualification under the Constitution. Like, anyone cares about that anachronism (the Constitution; not Harvard)???
So, he deserves a break, and I am simply watching and waiting as to who all the smart people are he is going to surround himself with. We know, after all that he has no executive experience, and those who voted for him must have reasoned that he must be able to develop his 'change' team based on true expertise which had never been attracted to or employed by government before.
Oh, all the Clinton retreads, well...whatever! The 'change' comes from him; they are simply his minions...
Anyway, back to Panetta.
As a retired intelligence professional, I can claim some knowledge in what it just might take to be the Director of National Intelligence. Notice I don't say the Director of the C.I.A. The Director of the C.I.A. is what they call, 'dual-hatted' he is BOTH the director of the C.I.A.--not a minor position in our current threat environment--but also the Director of National Intelligence. Yes, that means he runs ALL U.S. Intelligence agencies. Every one; CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, DOS-INR, every one. This is not a position that someone with no intelligence background should even accept! Even those who have limited experience (which includes me--my experience was limited primarily to the DoD) should seriously think twice. (01/11/2009-Update-Looks like I was wrong. BHO has a different intelligence consumer in mind for the DNI. Not that it matters much, as proposing an Intel consumer to run Intel organization(s) is like saying that I--since I have used plumbing my whole life--am qualified to run a plumbing company. It just doesn't work!)
Why? Because the intelligence world is very 'compartmentalized' It must be, as intelligence is simply 'evaluated information'. What we know or don't know is critical. For example, if we knew where Bin Laden was going to be, we could plan and execute an operation which would have a high-likelihood of capturing him (except under a Clinton administration, I guess). If he knew we knew, he would leave as soon as he found out we knew his location. What we know versus what he knows we know changes behavior.
So, if you know something that you don't want someone else to know you know; what do you do? Tell as few as possible; compartmentalization. The other reason for compartmentalization is likewise obvious: If you know who you told, and it gets out, you might be able to tell who told. If you know who told, you don't want to tell them anything again. That would spoil any chance you had of future success, right?
Second, intelligence is taken very seriously for a very good reason: people's lives depend on who knows who they are and what they do. If you keep track of who you told what--and a certain set of facts that you can track back to one or more of those individuals that were told/had access to it--you also know who to arrest or kill. The most innocent public statement can sometimes be derived back to a source. If that source had access to the information, what do you think his or her life will be worth? If you don't think that is important, then look at the cost from the perspective that that source could have taken years and dollars to find, develop, gain the trust of and gain access to that kind of information. How long could it take to find another? This is why one very rarely actually hears from a credible intelligence professional. They know how hard it is to not tell something that could accidentally give away a source.
Just from these two basic aspects of the intelligence world, the culture and the potential costs, should make you realize how stupid this appointment really is. It should also inform you of how ignorant and arrogant Panetta must be to accept it. This is not a position for on-the-job-training. If BHO wanted to show how unprepared he is for the Executive Branch, this will do it for me. As so far as a mistake which could potentially bring harm to this country, this is a far, far more brain-dead act than something like, oh, say, nominating Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court...
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