Seriously?
Posted by David Darlington on 6 January 2009 | 22 responses
Leon Panetta is President-elect Obama’s choice for the new CIA chief. Should someone ask him now if he’s making these choices by just shuffling a deck of Topps Clinton Administration player cards, or should we wait until Dee Dee Myers becomes Surgeon General?
Holy sh*t, your joke may not be that far off. The Washington Post is reporting that Obama now wants CNN journalist Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General. I know he’s not a recycled Clinton crony, but isn’t this a joke? WTF?
Yes, yes, lovely snark, guys, but is there anything actually _wrong_ with either of those possible appointments? They both look incredibly smart to me.
Also, seeing as there’s only been one Democratic administration since _1980_, yeah, duh, if they want people with some experience, then they’re going to have a lot of Clinton administration veterans.
Sheesh.
Philosopher,
I think the point is that Obama promised Change, not Clinton.
Philosopher,
Dave S. has it right. This is the administration I would have expected President Hillary Clinton to appoint, not Obama. I thought he was Mr. Let’s Do This Differently. Remember in the primaries when Bill Clinton got in a huff because Obama said Reagan was a transformative president but not Bill? For a man who made so many implicit criticisms of the Clintonites, he’s sure appointing a lot of them.
Y’all are very confused about how this whole thing works. Focus on the Panetta case: it’s a brilliant move given _exactly_ his goal of changing the culture in the intelligence community that we’ve had under the Bushies. Now, if you want to actually change that culture, you can’t just throw a total n00b at the top and say, “go change things!” It won’t work; they’ll get completely out-moved and out-gunned by all the entrenched players, both in the agencies themselves and by the legislative powers-that-be. You need someone who knows how to play the game, but who isn’t beholden to the players who you’re trying to change the game out from under. Panetta is terrific for that.
It’ll be Obama’s policies & priorities, not Clinton’s. But he’d be a fool to think he could actually _achieve_ those policies & priorities without the experience and know-how of people who are actual administration veterans. These people are his instruments — the question is what does _he_ plan to accomplish using them, not what did the last guy who had them try to do.
Phil… care explain the return of Larry Summers? You need a vet to change the culture… that he was a big part of creating?
Should I take it that you’ve dropped your objections to Panetta, then?
Anyhow, even people who hate Summers as a person think he’s a freakin’ genius on economics. (There’s a reason he’s probably not been tapped to run a department, though!)
Politically, he’s also important as someone who, though he has a rock-solid reputation as a deficit hawk, is on board with the kind of massive stimulus that Obama will be looking to roll out asap.
Here’s a pretty good take on what’s going on behind the Summers pick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/economy/26leonhardt.html?em
Why is Dr. Gupta a joke?
He’s a neurosurgeon who talks about public health for CNN.
As Surgeon General, he’ll be a neurosurgeon who talks about public health for the US government.
Seems to me that Obama should be able to find talented individuals to fill his administration who weren’t players in the Clinton administration. Surely Mr. Panetta isn’t the only person in the country qualified to head up the CIA who wasn’t part of the CIA during the Bush Administration.
Then again, I never really bought the idea that Obama was going to change Washington in any fundamental way. At most, I was hoping he’d be able to turn down the partisan rancor a few notches.
Panetta got a key endorsement from Sandy Berger.
With friends like that, who needs critics?
Check out this new Christian Blog http://www.gospelcast.com
Philosopher:
I agree with your comments regarding experienced people being good, however, while Panetta has lots of executive experience (he should, he is 70 years old) Panetta doesn’t have any experience with the CIA or espionage. Wouldn’t someone with more previous exposure to the CIA have been a better pick? Typically, the DCI or DCIA has some sort of experience with the agency before they are told to direct it. Panetta has none other than a very tenuous connection from his time as Clinton’s chief of staff.
I have been very impressed with some of Obama’s picks and very disappointed with others. This pick falls in the latter group.
Yawn. The last time anybody checked (which was back on December 1st, and it was Gallup who did the asking), 78% of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling his presidential transition, with only 13% disapproving. A majority of Democrats (94%), independents (79%), and Republicans (57%) say they approve.
Says Gallup:
And BTW David, Steve Biegun over at the blog, Shadow Government on FP that you recommended on the previous thread, described Obama’s foreign policy team this way: “highly talented and accomplished officials.”
At this point, I think that Democrats and most Americans are satisfied with Obama’s team of ex-Clintonites because, like the above writer, we think they’re “highly talented and accomplished officials.” After eight years of Bush/GOP rule, that is indeed “change.”
Couldn’t Obama have sought a retired Congressindividual who served on an intelligence committee instead of Panetta? That way you cover both the CIA-outsider and actual-experience-with-intel bases.
Or, if he wants spy experience waaaay outside the CIA, he could nominate Ion Mihai Pacepa
I wouldn’t say I disapprove of Obama’s handling of his presidential transition, despite questioning a few of his staff selections. I’m not even saying that Panetta is a bad choice for CIA, per se. I just think it shows that his campaign image as some kind of transformative politician was all smoke and mirrors.
“I just think it shows that his campaign image as some kind of transformative politician was all smoke and mirrors.”
I’d say it’s just a tad premature for that conclusion since he has yet to take a single action as President; he’s not in a position yet to do that much of the promised transformation. Doesn’t your statement assume that all the appointees from the Clinton administration are going to operate roughly identically to the way they did under Clinton? More importantly, with some exceptions, don’t most of the criticisms of the Clinton administration fall squarely on Billy-boy himself as opposed to his appointees?
To your point though, I don’t hold out much hope either that he will be that transformative; he is just another politician at this point and extreme cynicism is empirically justified. I was pretty surprised though that he was even elected, so I have some hope that he can change things for the better. Regardless, seems like he should actually be on the job for a bit before we make the ’smoke and mirrors’ judgment.
Dave,
You’re right. What I should have said is that his Clinton-era appointments are an indication that his campaign image was fake. There’s still a possibility that he will govern differently.
I’m still glad Obama won the primary instead of Hillary.
Mark Byron noted that GHW Bush didn’t have any spook experience when he got the CIA nod. But was he successful? That I don’t know.
Panetta needs to start talking about the his vision for the CIA, even before the confirmation hearings.
Shorter Eric Seymour: Obama’s appointing people who will actually have a chance of implementing his desired changes is an “indication” that he is not interested in change.
Seriously?
The word “change” is meaningless. Change isn’t always for the better, despite what Spencer Johnson says.