But without agency or any intelligence firsthand experience, how would a clueless Panetta be able to design a mission, or interrogate a key Al Quida operative, with radical Islam burgeoning worldwide, and the Taliban on the rise in Afghanistan? Is this any time for on the job training?

Panetta, a good manager-type of executive, is filling a position requiring someone with a adequate set of skills that would give him the AUTHORITY needed to run a spy agency. After all, would any big-city mayor have any hope of keeping his job if he were to appoint someone as police chief who'd never been a cop himself? Is there any difference here? This is nothing short of a massive blunder on Obama's part, despite what his liberal supporters of the appointment may say.

Obama seems to be conducting some mad scientist experiment with his attempt to prove that one need not be sophisticated in the field of spying to become the head of a department of spies. Obama is now playing with the safety of America. Panetta has absolutely no experience in the intelligence world, but was once the director of the Department of Management-basically another Clinton pencil-pusher running a new show. And if the country is attacked because of this, who would take responsibility? The liberal left, who basically coerced Obama into making such a clueless appointment?

Yes; it's that "change" thing again. Panetta has no knowledge of CIA structure or staffing, and will undoubtedly cause agency morale to plummet. This also means all the old CIA hands will be fired that support coercion, interrogation, eaves-dropping, and prisons. So who will replace them? The Peace Corps?

With Panetta at the CIA's helm, clandestine is out, and transparency is in. So now, let everyone in Congress be apprised of the agency's every move-that's the way to do it! Play "I've got a secret" on Capitol Hill. Homeland security is out, and Pollyanna is in. From now on, we'll make nice with Al Quida, and they'll certainly return the favor. Perhaps their next planned attack won't be as harsh. Maybe they'll switch from boxcutters to nail files in the new Panetta-Obama era of being nice to the bad guys.

And maybe if Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, NOW decides to attack Israel, or Osama hits New York again; Mr. Panetta and Obama can send a "strongly-worded" message to remind them that they're not being nice. So in this new era of being cute with our enemies, what would happen if maybe we did capture Osama? We wouldn't (couldn't) interrogate him under the new ground rules?

Yes; let's be nicer to our enemies, just turn the other cheek, and see how nicely they return the favor. If we had found Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 plot, and EXECUTED him, we might have avoided both the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars, prevented the 3000 casualties of 9-11; and the World Trade Center towers would still be proudly standing in lower Manhattan. Yes, that’s what a good, FUNCTIONING, CIA intelligence agency can do.

But the operative word here is 'functioning'- A CIA with no ability to get tough might as well become a branch of the USO, according to the liberal leftists. After all, the goal of the CIA is intelligence-not public relations, as Obama has suddenly come to believe by appointing the 70 year old Panetta .

But is there a reason Obama feels he needs to give Panetta a job? Is this some sort of a quid pro quo? This is a very poor fit based on Panetta's lack of experience. Does Leon have something on Barack, or could he possibly be this clueless?

Former intelligence veterans have a litany of concerns about what will amount to the most inexperienced intelligence director to be appointed since the creation of the CIA in 1947. And current employees are enraged that a political hack is being named CIA director. It's demeaning to the entire 20,000 person staff. It's painfully obvious to anyone with agency experience that Panetta is unqualified to lead the CIA-end of discussion-period!

In choosing Leon E. Panetta to be the next CIA director, President-elect Obama appears to have concluded that a spy chief who understands politics, may be better equipped to carry out the incoming administration's national security agenda than one who understands espionage

This is like appointing the head of Starbucks as director of the FBI, because that person has great organizational experience. And what if the FBI had no powers of interrogation? What instead, if our public enemies were given coffee and donuts, and encouraged to discuss their experiences? How well would that work out?

Could the United States have won World War II without intelligence? Because the OSS was capable of killing certain Nazi operatives (and used clever deception), the Allies were able to convince Hitler that the D-day invasion would occur at Calais rather than Normandy. This shortened the war by at least a year, and possibly saved the entire western world!

Could the independent state of Israel have survived without its fabled intelligence force, the Mossad? It was the Mossad that uncovered the Arab plans for the 1967 Six Day war, where the Israelis knew the Egyptians and Syrians were coming; and the resulting pre-emptive Israeli air strikes prevented disaster and gave the conflict its name, "6 -Day War". How many lives were saved because of the brevity of this war?

But this is what intelligence agencies do --by playing hardball with the enemy (torture, interrogation, coercion, deception) you trade some human suffering on the part of your foe for the saving of your own countrymen's lives, and avoid any surprise attacks.

This is the purpose of intelligence-it's security. You save your own country from possible disaster through pre-emptive intelligence operatives: spy-vs-spy...We vs. Them. That's the real world out there. You will not be safe by playing softball with the enemy. Being  sneaky is a necessity- not by being open and playing goody-goody.  

For years after World War II, U.S. intelligence forces had done their job well. The CIA succeeded in stalemating the KGB during the Cold War era in Asia . The agency had been staffed by the former members of the OSS , our World War II spy service. Before 1977, the CIA was highly effective world wide in keeping Washington informed as to what our enemies were up to.

But then came the election of Jimmie Carter in 1976, and the sad dismantling of a once-proud, highly-motivated intelligence organization. Carter, like all liberals, believed in being "fair". So what did Carter see as the first place to single out for reforming? It was those nasty, dastardly, secretive, 'immoral' CIA brigands. After all, hadn't the CIA taken part in assassinations, deception, blackmail, torture, and other knavish misdeeds during the 50 's and 60's?

Today, it can be noted back in history when Carter made one of the most ill-conceived presidential decisions of all time: He issued an executive order that placed all nine U.S. intelligence agencies under the coordination of one man: CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who was 54 years old at that time

Stansfield Turner had no agency or intelligence experience of any kind. He was Jimmie Carter's college roommate at the Naval Academy. Carter probably would have done just as well to appoint Mr. Rogers, or Mr. Magoo for that matter, because like Carter, Turner saw the world through rose colored glasses, and was blind to the true realities that indeed, America had many implacable enemies around the world, especially in the Middle East

In October of 1977, Turner issued an administrative order to sharply curb many of the clandestine practices that had brought the CIA much of its criticism from the liberal members in Congress back then (i.e. Idaho Senator Frank Church). 

Long time CIA veterans began complaining about Mr. Turner's abrasive, arrogant style. So Turner callously decided to clean house. On Halloween of '77, Turner circulated a photocopied memo informing 800 staffers (mostly Republicans) of their dismissal. Many of the people fired were seasoned agents, going all the way back to the OSS of World War II. A lot of them spoke Arabic, and were fluent in other foreign languages.

It has been noted by many historians that Stansfield Turner was the single worst senior presidential appointment in U.S. history. Turner has been described as..."a CIA traitor, appointed by Jimmie Carter to castrate the agency...In eliminating virtually all human intelligence on the ground, he put the U.S. at a strong disadvantage, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan".  

But Obama and his idealogues have decided to repeat History 30 years later, just like the last liberal president who ruined the CIA with an inexperienced, party hack appointee.

Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels that have roiled the U.S. intelligence community for a half century. But, as a veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama expects of him.