Transition: Panetta's challenge
Posted: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:15 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The New York Times examines the tough task facing Panetta once he's confirmed as CIA director. “As every previous director could attest, succeeding at the helm at the Central Intelligence Agency requires an uneasy balance: being firm enough to impose a White House agenda without inciting a revolt, while winning allegiance at the agency without being co-opted by its bureaucracy. For Leon E. Panetta, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the job, the task is made even more difficult because of intense pressure on Mr. Obama from members of Congress and outside groups to hold agency officials accountable for counterterrorism policies in which the C.I.A. played a leading role.”
Charlie Cook, in his latest National Journal column, writes about the criticism Obama has received for selecting Panetta. “On the Panetta pick, the real question is whether the selection itself was a mistake or whether Obama’s transition team simply erred by not consulting the Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s incoming chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., or past chairman, Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. My hunch is that it’s the latter. Senate egos and territoriality dictate consultation -- or at least advance notice couched as consultation. And the senators’ remarks suggest that they felt dissed.”
“The fact that Obama chose to go with Panetta and to tap retired four-star Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence suggests frustration or mistrust of the intelligence agencies and a desire to bring outsiders -- albeit very experienced ones -- in to oversee intelligence operations. This is hardly the first time a president has picked someone outside the intelligence community to head the CIA. Indeed, it has happened quite often. (Does the name George H.W. Bush mean anything?) And now, with a director of national intelligence above the CIA director, going outside seems even less like a mortal sin. This was more a misstep in congressional relations than a personnel mistake.”
Eric Holder’s confirmation isn’t going to be easy. The Los Angeles Times delves into Holder's role in the clemency of some controversial Puerto Rican nationalists.
Obama is appointing CIA vet John Brennan to a White House post on terror in order to avoid Senate confirmation. "The president-elect's decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.”
“The firm Brennan heads, the Analysis Corp., and its corporate parent have earned millions of dollars over the past decade assisting several federal agencies and private firms on counterterrorism. Those oil and telecommunications firms have worked in countries beset by violence, including Mozambique, Liberia, Colombia and Pakistan -- all of which have been topics of intense policy debate in Washington."
Cass Sunstein is now on board. The Harvard law professor “has accepted the position of administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget, with oversight on environmental, healthcare, and safety issues. Except for a brief stint as a Justice Department lawyer before becoming a professor in 1981, Sunstein has no experience in government or management." Sunstein was an adviser to Obama's campaign and knew Obama while Sunstein worked at the University of Chicago. Sunstein is viewed as a "pragmatist," who "will recognize the limitations as well as the possibilities of his position and not view himself as the philosopher-in-chief trying to impose an ambitious liberal regulatory agenda that Congress and the president are unlikely to support."
Here are some of the dates for the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings:
-- Friday, Jan. 9, 9:30 am ET: Labor: Rep. Hilda Solis (HELP Committee)
-- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 10:00 am ET: Education: Arne Duncan (HELP Committee)
-- Tuesday, Jan. 13: Energy Secretary: Steven Chu (Energy and Natural Resources Committee)
-- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 10 am ET: HUD: Shaun Donovan (Banking Committee)
-- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 9:30 am ET: State: Sen. Hillary Clinton (Foreign Relations Committee)
-- Wednesday, Jan. 14: Veteran Affairs: Gen. Eric Shinseki (Veterans' Affairs Committee)
-- Thursday, Jan. 15: Interior: Sen. Ken Salazar (Energy and Natural Resources Committee)
-- Thursday, Jan. 15: Attorney General: Eric Holder (Judiciary Committee)
-- Thursday, Jan. 15: Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee) (tentative)
-- Thursday, Jan. 15, 9:30 am: UN Ambassador: Susan Rice (Foreign)
