Obama Picks Leon Panetta to Head CIA

Update: Dianne Feinstein, who's about to take over as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, isn't too happy that she wasn't consulted by Obama. 

Apparently, she wanted an insider.

Obama picks Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, and retired Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence. Panetta replaces Mike McConnell. During the primaries, Panetta compared Clinton Pollster Mark Penn to Karl Rove. Ouch. Opposition to Panetta and challenges. 

CNN: Leon Panetta, chief of staff in President Clinton's White House, will be President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be CIA director, two Democratic officials told CNN on Monday.

Leon Panetta was chief of staff for President Clinton.

The officials also said that retired Adm. Dennis Blair, who formerly headed the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, will be tapped as director of national intelligence.

Panetta, 70, has had a long political career, beginning in 1966 when he was a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel, R-California.

Panetta was elected to the House of Representatives in 1977, serving California's 16th (now 17th) Congressional District until Clinton appointed him to head the Office of Budget and Management in 1993. He was chief of staff from 1994 to 1997.

Here is Panetta's bio from the The Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy:

Leon Edward Panetta has had a long and distinguished career in public service, ranging from his tour of duty in the U.S. Army to his service as the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.
Born in Monterey in 1938 of Italian immigrant parents, Panetta attended both Catholic and public schools and worked on his family’s farm in Carmel Valley, where he lives today with his wife Sylvia. He earned a B.A. magna cum laude from Santa Clara University and his J.D. from Santa Clara University Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He served as a First Lieutenant in the Army from 1964 to 1966 and received the Army Commendation Medal.
Panetta first went to Washington in 1966, when he served as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Thomas H. Kuchel of California, the Senate Minority Whip. In 1969, he became Special Assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and then Director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights, where he was responsible for enforcement of equal education laws. His book Bring Us Together (published in 1971) is an account of that experience. In 1970, he went to New York City, where he served as executive assistant to Mayor John Lindsay, overseeing the city’s relations with the state and federal governments. Then, in 1971, he returned to California, where he practiced law in the Monterey firm of Panetta, Thompson & Panetta until he was elected to Congress in 1976.
Panetta was a U.S. Representative from California’s 16th (now 17th) district from 1977 to 1993. As a House member, he was a key participant in the 1990 budget summit as well as every other budget summit during the 1980s. He authored the Hunger Prevention Act of 1988; the Fair Employment Practices Resolution extending civil rights protections to House employees for the first time; numerous successful measures to protect the California coast, including creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; legislation that established Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for hospice care for the terminally ill; and other legislation on a variety of education, health, agriculture and defense issues.
From 1989 to 1993, Panetta was chairman of the House Committee on the Budget. He also served as a member of that committee from 1979 to 1985. He chaired the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations and Nutrition; the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Personnel and Police; and the Select Committee on Hunger’s Task Force on Domestic Hunger. He also served as vice chairman of the Caucus of Vietnam Era Veterans in Congress and as a member of the President’s Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies.
Panetta left Congress in 1993, at the beginning of his ninth term, to become Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the incoming Clinton administration. In that position, he was instrumental in developing the 1993 budget package that is widely credited with achieving a balanced federal budget and eventual budget surpluses.
Panetta was appointed Chief of Staff to President Clinton on July 17, 1994, and served in that position until January 20, 1997. He was the principal negotiator of the successful 1996 budget compromise, and was widely praised for bringing order and focus to White House operations and policy making.
Panetta is currently co-directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay – a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord. The Institute serves as a nonpartisan, not-for-profit study center for the advancement public policy, seeking in particular to attract thoughtful men and women to lives of public service.
In addition, Mr. Panetta serves as Distinguished Scholar to the Chancellor of the California State University system. He advises the Chancellor on national issues affecting higher education and teaches a Master’s course in Public Policy at the Panetta Institute.
In 1997, he was also appointed Presidential Professor at Santa Clara University, teaching a course called Studies in Public Policy
Mr. Panetta has served as a leader in numerous community and national public policy organizations throughout his career. In March 2006, he was chosen to serve on the Iraq Study Group, a bi-partisan committee established at the urging of Congress and organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and the James A. Baker III Institute. Since 2005, he has served as member of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future. In November 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed him co-chair of the Council on Base Support and Retention.
Mr. Panetta served a six-year term on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange beginning in 1997. He was chairman of the Committee for Review for the New York Stock Exchange Board of Directors and was co-chair of the Corporate Governance and Listing Standards Committee for the Stock Exchange.
He served on the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the board of the National Steinbeck Center, and the University of California Santa Cruz Foundation, and since June 1998, he has served on the board of the Santa Clara University Law School Board of Visitors. He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Santa Clara University; as a member of the Fleishman-Hillard International Advisory Board; as a trustee for the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula; and as a director for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He is chairman of the National Board of Advisors of the Center for National Policy as well as chairman of the Pew Oceans Commission. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for Blue Shield of California; IDT; Zenith; Connetics; the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation; Bread for the World; and Close Up. He lectures nationally and internationally on the state of the economy, the federal budget and other issues facing our nation, and is the recipient of awards and honors too numerous to list.

Mr. Panetta is married to the former Sylvia Marie Varni, who administered his district offices during his service in Congress and continues as a partner in his many activities. They have three grown sons and five grandchildren.

Mark Penn Dotes on Clintonism

I've heard all the Kool-Aid jokes about Obama supporters but what's this guy been drinking?

The folks at Politico must have died laughing when they read this gem.

Mark Penn, Hillary's former adviser, wrote all about Clintonism, how Clintonism is marvelous and how we're all yearning for Clintonism and how Clintonism will not die.

Then on page 2, near the very end of the screed, Penn mentions that Obama will usher in Clintonism once more. Ick.

Maybe some of things he says about Clinton (Bill) are true but to write them at this moment in time, the day of the democratic convention, is a desperate attempt to hold on.

These people are very afraid of being dis-empowered. They are very threatened by Obama. I imagine this is a good thing.

They. Just. Can't. Let. Go. Kitchen sink to the end. No grace.

I'm wondering if there will come a day when this election won't be about Clintonism anymore.

Here's the end of the story but you should read the whole thing so you too can find yourself in utter amazement.

Politico: In the next few days, both Clintons will offer their unbridled support for Barack Obama — and genuinely so. And then Obama will have the opportunity to define before the public the direction he will take the country if elected.
I believe Obama will spell out some very dramatic changes in direction from Bush, but he is also likely to suggest a policy framework that is very similar to what the Clintons would suggest as the way to bring the country back — open the doors of opportunity and equality and restore our global leadership while shutting down the cultural wars of the past. And it is this unity of direction that brings all Democrats together.

Catharsis: The New Fragrance for the Woman Who Lost

This is just funny.

Hillary's Aide: She Lost Iowa Because of Edwards

It's amazing the lengths that Hillary, her husband and crew have gone to undermine Obama. 

It's obvious. She didn't win and she doesn't want Obama to win. It's getting tedious.

She campaigns for Obama and says she's behind him and then she's off coyly telling her supporters another thing. 

Today, Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania, is saying Hillary could win Obama 15 states.
The idea is even being floated that she could win the nomination at the convention.

And let's not forget Mark Penn, who advised Hillary to paint Obama as Un American. Creep. I'm sure John McCain thanks you. 

Now her former communications director said they would've won Iowa if Edwards hadn't lied. Nice unity.

Her crew is so divisive and they're in denial or they're prepping for a Big: I told you so. If Obama lost in November, that would boost Hillary. 

If Obama didn't have to fend off the Hillarys as well as McCain and the Republicans, he might be further along.

Swamp: Sen. Hillary Clinton's former communications director, Howard Wolfson, said he believes the New York senator would have won Iowa if John Edwards' affair had been exposed earlier, forcing him out of the race.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

"Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson continued. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."

Penn Advised Hillary to Cast Obama UnAmerican

Update: 8-11. Story is out. 

Update: More at CNN, following on Politico's story. 

No surprise here. 

Looks like there were a lot of unhappy campers on Hillary's team. Politico writes about a forthcoming story from the Atlantic.

Mark Penn, the top campaign strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), advised her to portray Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as having a “limited” connection “to basic American values and culture,” according to a forthcoming article in The Atlantic magazine.

The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: “Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? … Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?”

Atlantic Senior editor Joshua Green writes that major decisions during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination would be put off for weeks until suddenly Clinton “would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.”

Desperation.

Penn, the presidential campaign’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: “I cannot imagine American electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”

Drama.

Green reports that on Feb. 11, the day that Clinton finally replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with Maggie Williams, Wolfson aide Phil Singer cursed out first Wolfson, then Policy Director and Solis Doyle ally Neera Tanden, yelling: “[Expletive] you and the whole [expletive] cabal” before climbing on a chair, berating the entire staff and leaving.

Solis Doyle is now on the Obama team.

Clintons Tallying Loyalists and Unloyalists

the clintons and their supporters are keeping a traitor list. that's a gracious way to lose. i couldn't imagine that obama doing that if he lost. he seems to be such an... adult. that's what's been missing in the white house, a grown up.

Mr. Band keeps close track of the past allies and beneficiaries of the Clintons who supported Mr. Obama’s campaign, three Clinton associates and campaign officials said. Indeed, he is widely known as a member of the Clinton inner circle whose memory is particularly acute on the matter of who has been there for the couple — and who has not.

“The Clintons get hundreds of requests for favors every week,” said Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Clearly, the people you’re going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you.”

Mr. McAuliffe, who knows of Mr. Band’s diligent scorekeeping, emphasized that “revenge is not what the Clintons are about.” The accounting is more about being practical, he said, adding, “You have to keep track of this.”

Mr. Band, who declined to comment, is hardly alone in tallying those considered to have crossed the former candidate or the former president in recent months by supporting Mr. Obama. As the Obama bandwagon has swelled, so have the lists of people Clinton loyalists regard as some variation of “ingrate,” “traitor” or “enemy,” according to the associates and campaign officials, who would speak only on condition of anonymity.

here's more from the silly clinton people keeping a list:

Mrs. Clinton’s friends have a list of their own (it has frequently included the former president), as do veterans of Mr. Clinton’s White House (who love to blame Patti Solis Doyle, Mrs. Clinton’s former campaign manager), Clinton campaign employees (who complained incessantly — and continue to — about Mark Penn, the demoted chief strategist), Clinton fund-raisers and women’s groups who supported Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

“I won’t forget these people,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the Esprit clothing company and a longtime friend of the Clintons who describes herself as “a soul sister” to Mrs. Clinton.

When asked to name “these people,” Ms. Buell specifies “all the women who sold out Hillary.” She declined to volunteer names on her list but answered “all of the above” when read a roster of prominent women supporting Mr. Obama that includes Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

Hillary's Backers Undercutting Obama

well, i figured it was too good to be true. obama takes a couple of days off to spend time with his family and dianne feinstein is pushing hillary, popular vote! popular vote! she should be supporting obama now and quit with the hillary speak. with hillary, it's always one more thing. now, we're stuck with a bunch of politicians trying to push hillary as vice president. these people have become tedious.

politico: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a backer of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) during the primary campaign, reiterated on ABC’s “This Week” that Clinton had won the popular vote — an assertion that is not accepted by Illinois Democrat Sen. Barack Obama’s camp and one that, if repeated often, could harm Democratic attempts to unify behind him.

“Hillary Clinton is well known, certainly she had the popular vote in this election,” she said, according to a transcript. “That is something and that is something tremendous. Now, I believe the [vice presidential] nomination is up to him. I can't tell him what to do. Nobody else can tell him what to do. All I can say is I agree with [Pennsylvania Gov.] Ed Rendell, that if you really want a winning ticket, this is it.”

dick morris, who called the race long ago, says hillary didn't quit and won't.

rcp: Why won't Hillary just concede that she has lost and pull out of the race? Why does she persist in keeping her delegates in line for her and not releasing them to Obama? Why does she feign party unity while, in fact, undermining it?

The Clintons never do anything without a lot of thinking and planning. There is no benign explanation for her maneuvers. They have several options that they are deliberately keeping open by their increasingly awkward positioning. Here's what they're up to:

1. The Obama Stumbles Option

As Hillary says, June is "early" in politics when the convention is not to be held until the end of August, unusually late for a Democratic conclave. And, as Tip O'Neill says "a week is a long time in politics." So is three months.

mark penn, one of her advisers blames money. obama just ran a better campaign, he says, which is practically meaningless. it wasn't anything that hillary did, it was the money. well WHY didn't hillary receive enough money from her 18 million people she touts so often? or did her campaign mismanage the money?

Clinton Indebted to Former Strategist Penn?

does clinton owe mark penn, her former (or maybe not) strategist, big money:

rcp: Beyond loyalty, Penn is welded to the 2008 Clinton campaign by financial ties. A source who has had close connections with Penn got word to me that he believes the Clinton campaign is $10 million in debt to Penn, Schoen & Berland, which is owned by Burson-Marsteller. The campaign's March report to the Federal Election Commission recorded indebtedness to the company of nearly $2.5 million (with its expenses for the month listed at $3.1 million).

My sources suggest that Clinton's full indebtedness may be revealed only gradually. This money link helps explain why Penn is still around after organized labor demanded his scalp last summer and he is blamed inside the campaign for failing to perceive the public's demand for "change."

more:

Immediately after Mark Penn resigned as Hillary Clinton's chief strategist a week ago, he was on the phone with at least two prominent Democrats to assure them that nothing had changed. He said that -- though lacking a title now -- he still was polling and crafting her message, adding that he had just participated in a top-level conference call. De facto retention of Penn signified a desire to defeat Barack Obama at any cost.

One day later, word was spread in Democratic circles that Geoff Garin, hired as a pollster by Sen. Clinton last month, had supplanted Penn as chief strategist. An experienced political practitioner renowned for ethical standards more than imagination or daring, Garin in charge reassured the party faithful. It was interpreted as ruling out an eleventh-hour assault on Obama that would have less chance of nominating Clinton than wrecking the party.

Is Penn deceiving friends about his real status just to save face? Or is Garin merely a figurehead to take the heat off Clinton while she still relies on the contentious Penn?