Trial Balloon: Leon Panetta To Replace Robert Gates At The Pentagon

[tpsbmam]

Source: Business Insider

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it very clear that he will soon be returning to private life. Replacing the Obama Administration's most respected Cabinet member in the midst of three wars in Muslim nations is no small issue.

The Administration has floated its first (and probably last) trial balloon on the search: CIA DIrector Leon Panetta. The always reliable Laura Rozen reports:

Several officials tell The Envoy that the Obama administration is likely to name CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Gates as Secretary of Defense.

Officials say Panetta has emerged as the most likely nominee from a field of candidates that has reportedly included Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, and former Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, a sometimes Obama confidante.





Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/trial-balloon-leon-panetta-to-replace-robert-gates-at-the-pentagon-2011-3

[trumad]

1. Good

maybe he can stick the 3 wars in one of his socks.

[Psephos]

20. You'd need Sandy Berger to do that. n/t

[defendandprotect]

2. And do we trust Panetta more than Gates?

Isn't Panetta a former GOP -- and CIA?

We've certainly had a least one CIA president -- are they going to run all of

government soon?

[DURHAM D]

4. Panetta is CIA.

Don't think he has a single Republican moment in his background.

[Brother Buzz]

9. He was old school Republican

Left the Republican party in 1971 and became a Democrat.

[defendandprotect]

16. CIA has certainly been working to take over government -- how many CIA presidents so far?

Do we even know?

[Aerows]

24. Well, Obama worked at a CIA front company

as his first job. A startling number of people are unaware of that fact. You typically don't work for a CIA front company if you aren't in the CIA. It was Business International Corporation.

[defendandprotect]

25. Have heard rumors of Obama and CIA -- Certainly Poppy was and therefore W --

Ford was closely connected to FBI -- and presume CIA --

Will look up Business International Corporation --

[defendandprotect]

26. Wiki reports "Business Interenational Corporation" as "CIA front company" ----

Business International Corporation (BI) was a publishing and advisory firm dedicated to assisting American companies in operating abroad. In 1986, Business International was acquired by The Economist Group in London, and eventually merged with The Economist Intelligence Unit. BI has been known to be used as a CIA front company.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_International_Corporation

[defendandprotect]

27. New York Times report on Obama's NYC days --- and his writings about it --

Some say he has taken some literary license in the telling of his story. Dan Armstrong, who worked with Mr. Obama at Business International Corporation in New York in 1984 and has deconstructed Mr. Obama’s account of the job on his blog, analyzethis.net, wrote: “All of Barack’s embellishment serves a larger narrative purpose: to retell the story of the Christ’s temptation. The young, idealistic, would-be community organizer gets a nice suit, joins a consulting house, starts hanging out with investment bankers, and barely escapes moving into the big mansion with the white folks.”

In an interview, Mr. Armstrong added: “There may be some truth to that. But in order to make it a good story, it required a bit of exaggeration.”

Mr. Armstrong’s description of the firm, and those of other co-workers, differs at least in emphasis from Mr. Obama’s. It was a small newsletter-publishing and research firm, with about 250 employees worldwide, that helped companies with foreign operations (they could be called multinationals) understand overseas markets, they said. Far from a bastion of corporate conformity, they said, it was informal and staffed by young people making modest wages. Employees called it “high school with ashtrays.”

Many workers dressed down. Only the vice president in charge of Mr. Obama’s division got a secretary, they said. Mr. Obama was a researcher and writer for a reference service called Financing Foreign Operations. He also wrote for a newsletter, Business International Money Report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html?pagewanted=print

[Judi Lynn]

5. Gates was the Director of the CIA, himself, also a Bush holdover as Sec. of Defense.

It would have been good to see a new face there when Prsident Obama came to office.

I check his wikipedia to see if he had associations with the G.O.P. Here's part of his Wiki, which I never knew:

~snip~
In 1969 he became the assistant to Robert H. Finch, Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under the Nixon administration. Soon thereafter he was appointed Director of the Office for Civil Rights.

Panetta chose to enforce civil rights and equal education laws, even under alleged political pressure not to from then-president Nixon. Robert Mardian said of Panetta: "Doesn't he understand Nixon promised the Southern delegates he would stop enforcing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts?"<6> Secretary Robert Finch and Assistant Secretary John Veneman refused to fire Panetta, threatening to resign if forced to do so. A few weeks later in 1970, Panetta resigned and left Washington to work as Executive Assistant for John Lindsay, the Republican Mayor of New York City. He wrote about this experience in his 1971 book Bring Us Together: The Nixon Team and the Civil Rights Retreat.

~snip~
Congressional workPanetta switched to the Democratic Party in 1971, because he thought that the Republican Party was moving away from the political center. In 1976, Panetta was elected to the U.S. Congress to represent California's 16th congressional district, unseating incumbent Republican Burt Talcott with 53% of the vote (the 17th district after the 1990 census), and was reelected for nine terms.

During his time in Congress, his work concentrated mostly on budget issues, civil rights, education, health, and environmental issues, particularly preventing oil drilling off the California coast. He wrote the Hunger Prevention Act (Public Law 100-435) of 1988 and the Fair Employment Practices Resolution. He was a major contributor to the effort of establishing the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Panetta

[No Elephants]

18. Thanks. Not half as bad as I would have thought.

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Yes, worked for a Republican Senator, GOP NYC Mayor, and the Nixon Administration before

switching parties and becoming a Democrat.

[bemildred]

3. Perfect. nt

[No Elephants]

6. Let's never again have a Sec. of Defense who is not either a Rethug or a "former" Rethug.

Everyone knows Democrats are clueless about war (also financial matters, law enforcement--FBI, CIA--and so on).

Way to brand!

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Panetta has been a Democrat much longer than was a Republican

[No Elephants]

10. If you go strictly by labels, maybe.

He was a Nixon Republican. That's what he chose first, wasn't it?

My post said nothing about time periods or relative time periods. It said simply "a Rethug or a 'former' Rethug." He IS a "former" thug.

So, I guess I don't get your point--but, no worries, bc your post strongly suggests you totally missed the point of my post. So, we're, er, even, I guess.

(typo edit; also corrected words quoted from my prior post.)

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Even Hillary Clinton is a former Republican, but few would question her Democratic bona fides

[defendandprotect]

15. I would -- !! HRC has long been part of DLC leadership -- !! DLC funded by Koch Bros!!

[No Elephants]

17. Again, you seem to have totally missed the point of my original post.

But, even though it's not relevant to my post, just for fun...

In how many elections did Hillary vote Republican? (Bearing in mind voting age was 21.)

In which Republican administration(s) did she serve?

To which Democratic President was Panetta married?

Talk about apples and oranges.


Btw, didn't Hillary say McCain, then Republican Presidential nominee, was ready to be President, but Obama, her Democratic competition, was not? No less a Democrat than Pelosi questioned Hillary's fitness to represent the Democratic Party that day.

Finally, I indeed know many Dems who do in fact question the Democratic bona fides of both Clintons. (Again, being a Democrat is, to some, more than a name or a label.) Maybe even more Dems would question the Democratic bona fides of both Clintons, if so many were not relatively low info.

For example I know a lifelong Dem, age 75, a summa cum laudegrad of Barnard--history major, at that She reads two papers a day, yet never heard of things like the DLC, New Democrats, NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Steagall, etc.

She says simply, "We're fucked," even though she may be too low info--though very smart--to question anything as specific as the "Democratic bona fides" of any given individual Dem.

Again, though, the "Democratic bona fides" of Panecetta (or any individual Dem) was not the point of my original post.

[robcon]

12. Both are good people and good managers.

n/t

[rabs]

13. Spectacular quote by Panetta (begging forgiveness)

“I do not believe what I said and neither does the government of the United States. It was my mistake to repeat something that someone told me. It was not my intention to assume that thought as my own,” said Panetta according to Timerman.

--------------

Saturday, February 28, 2009
(Argentina's ambassador to the U.S. Hestor) Timerman said that Panetta called to “beg forgiveness of President Cristina Fernández, the government, and all of Argentina” after Panetta said Argentina's economy was at "risk" during the 2008/9 global crisis.

The "someone" Panetta mentions was Juan Manuel Santos, then Colombian Defense Minister and now president of Colombia.

[bemildred]

14. LOL. Panetta the Parrot. nt

[catchnrelease]

19. Rumors about Panetta replacement

Possibility of Petraeus replacing Panetta at CIA


In a presidency that has been marked by actions in direct opposition to his high-minded campaign, Barack Obama appears poised on the precipice of a move that could do more material damage to the US than his refusal to prosecute torturers, coddling of big business, healthcare sellout, escalation of existing wars and starting of a new one all combined. Rumors started on Twitter last night that, in a strange exchange of places, the potential nomination of Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense could be coupled with nominating General David Petraeus to head CIA. This is so wrong, so stupid, so downright evil that I hardly know where to start.

(snip)

If Petraeus is allowed to move to CIA, look for him to once again wipe his failure-laden slate clean and jump onto the drone bandwagon. The role of training local troops will disappear from what will “save” our efforts in Afghanistan, and the entire US press will be filled with adulation for the brave keyboard warriors in CIA who kill evil brown people from afar with missiles fired from drones. The reason for this is that Petraeus’ entire career has been built by leaks that he himself has fashioned in self-promotion. And now the guy who has built his career on leaks is being considered to head CIA? Say it ain’t so!



http://my.firedoglake.com/jimwhite/2011/03/29/petraeus-to-head-cia-would-be-obamas-worst-move-yet/

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. That was my first thought..who would replace Panetta.

Maybe the move is not about who gets Sec. of Defense, but who gets CIA job.

[tuckessee]

21. Just a little rearranging before expanding the current war(s). n/t

[Solly Mack]

22. Hmmm

Hmmm

That's all I got...

Hmmm