Leon Panetta was a longtime congressman
from Monterey, widely respected for his intelligence
and integrity, before joining the Clinton Administration.
By Steven T. Jones
President-elect Barack Obama sent a clear reformist message by selecting Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, and Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein responded with an equally clear message that she intends to block meaningful reform of this country’s disgraceful imperial overreach.
It’s not surprising. Feinstein has always been a faithful servant of the rich and powerful, and since 9/11 she’s been complicit in the Bush Administration’s illegal approach to the “war on terror” – implicitly condoning illegal spying, torture, assassinations, and fabrication of the casus belli in Iraq — while personally profiting from U.S. wars.
Also complicit in this unconstitutional mess is San Francisco’s other top congressional Democrat, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who knew about Bush’s warrantless wiretapping all along, did nothing to stop or expose it, and single-handedly blocked the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The question now is whether Obama, with the help of the progressive movement that helped elect him, can overcome these powerful defenders of the status quo. Because only a respected outsider (at least during the Bush years) like Panetta – rather than the intelligence community insider Feinstein wants – can credibly repair the damage and set a new course for this country.