The Truth About The Panetta Whining

Feinstein and others are complaining about Leon Panetta not being a good pick for CIA. I think that Feinstein saying its a bad pick is a good reason to confirm him and get California a new senior senator!

So what is it about? Simple: fear of accountability for torture.

Thanks to Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin and honest Pentagon brass, we know a lot about torture by the regular military. But we know very little about torture by the CIA because of the coverup by Jay Rockefeller and the corrupt CIA brass.

The CIA brass desperately want to keep everything secret because they tortured people to death, which is a war crime under U.S. and international law, and is punishable by death. JRock and DiFi want to protect the CIA brass, either out of blind professional loyalty or because they approved the torture and share in the guilt.

Leon Panetta would come in "clean" and therefore cannot be blackmailed by those who committed or approved torture. He could fire people, even refer them for prosecution. This terrifies the insiders.

That's what this is all about.

h/t Newshoggers

Update: Sully's take:

The more I think about this, the more it seems to me that the snub of these two was a deliberate signal. Their oversight of Bush's war crimes was pathetic. Ditto Harman. Obama is telling us he is serious about both improving intelligence and drawing a clear line - for the entire world to see - between the United States and the war criminals who will soon be leaving office, and those who enabled them. Meanwhile, more support from the smart right.

I Had An Original Thought: 2

The school reformers who would "professional development" us to death would also have you believe that most teachers just aren't very smart. These are the same folks who, rightly or wrongly, put weight in IQ indicators. For argument, let's stipulate that too many teachers are stoopid. Here is a chart showing the population's IQ distribution:

If 100 is normal, and a standard deviation is 15, you see a couple SDs in either direction and you're looking at someone packing, or not, so to speak. How many folks with IQs of 120+ are going into teaching? Not many. Hell, there aren't very many! What might lure them?

Also, I think there are teachers out there who are incredibly smart, and do their thing their way, and it works. They are indeed, and in IQ score, exceptional. So leave them alone! Let them teach! They bring what NCLB is quickly draining from our kids--creativity! Thoughtfulness! Things that matter to humanity, not some bottom line or rung on a career ladder.