It seems to me that everyone is missing the obvious. I have read numerous reports indicating that Democrats on select committees were properly informed by the Bush administration of their intent to use torture. Apparently, these Democrats, including the likes of Feinnstien and Rockefeller, have their tacit approval and probably their explicit approval.

The Panetta nomination is a clear signal that Obama intends to investigate and take corrective action regarding torture. So, these senators with blood on their hands are at risk. If I was Feinstien, I would do everything I can to block this nomination. If I was Obama, I would have never given her the chance to preemptively torpedo it.

Bush and his minions in and out of Congress ruthlessly and aggressively pushed around anyone and everyone to have their way. Bush claimed a mandate and did mostly as he pleased in the early years of his administration. That what he did ultimately proved to be both boneheaded and sometimes criminal is both accepted and unfortunate. Let's assume Obama won't be boneheaded and criminal. Let's assume Dems in and out of Congress have the same trust in him. Why in the hell shouldn't he be as ruthless and aggressive in pursuing legal, intelligent policies and goals as Bush was in implementing the opposite? I don't remember Bush feeling the need to step lightly during his initial days in office. Obama should serve notice a few select people can piss off and better learn to keep their damned mouths closed and count to ten before trying to kneecap him in the national press.

The Panetta nomination is a clear signal that Obama intends to investigate and take corrective action regarding torture -Catfish

I hope you're right. But that would give Rockefeller and Feinstein more reason to oppose Holder, as well as Justice Dept people like Johnsen, Kagen et. al. from yesterday's post, than Panetta. Or am I missing something?

Danp, I think the difference is that unlike the Justice Department nominees, Panetta faces confirmation hearings from the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Feinstein chairs. In this case she has much more influence over the outcome of the confirmation process.

Sam W - That makes sense. Then the threat Panetta poses is that he would cooperate more with the JD, after confirmation.

Hey Diane Feinstein! SHUT UP! Nobody Cares what you think! N-O-B-O-D-Y C-A-R-E-S!!! Just confirm who your told to confirm, and shut it.

Feinstein and Rockefeller. If I were them I'd be a bit skittish right about now too.Both having overtly supported Bushit on his torture and FISA spying morass. I hope they both end up either in jail or having to resign from their Senatorships. They deserve much worse. Maybe an afternoon with the families of the poor bastards that were tortured due to their lemming-like obedience to Bushit's torture policies. What fun...

Nothing prepares you better for the Washington in-game than the Memoirs of Saint-Simon. Here's one chapter's subheadings:

Fascination of the Duchesse de Bourgogne
Fortunes of Nangis
He Is Loved by the Duchesse and Her Dame d'Atours
Discretion of the Court
Maulevrier
His Courtship of the Duchess
Singular Trick
Its Strange Success
Mad Conduct of Maulevrier
He Is Sent to Spain
His Adventures There
His Return and Tragical Catastrophe

"Tragical Catastrophe"--that's all it is in Tax Town.

Yeah, I was going to point out something along the lines of what Catfish pointed out - Feinstein doesn't think that voting for "Porter Goss, George Tenet, and Michael Hayden" were actually bad votes. So why should she agree with this shake-up? It's a rejection of everything that she has been working for in the intelligence area over the last decade.

Not informing DiFi of this selection was probably the first big mis-step I've seen the Obama transition team make. They really should have been out in front of her on this because she's going to be a GIANT pain-in-the-ass over this. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see her spend political cred to shred Panetta and force Obama to put someone new up, partly because Panetta isn't one of her buddies in the CIA, but mostly because Team Obama slighted her. That's how the Senate rolls, and Obama should know that.

lets see. . . about 3 weeks ago, with great fanfare, Democratic leaders in the Senate made clear that Biden, unlike Cheney, would not be included in leadership meetings. It was critical, they said, to restoring the proper separation of the branches.

but it now appears they only want separation in one direction - they want the White House out of their business, but the White House should include them in everything, coddle their delicate feelings, and let them call the shots on Presidential appointments.

good to know.

i hope Obama kicks their hapless little asses up and down Pennsylvania Ave.

The business about "operational experience" and the desire for "an intelligence professional" are both thinly veiled demands for someone who is as compromised as Feinstein and Rockefeller are. Based on past performance, neither of them deserve to be heard.

Setting aside the question of whether she's right or not: she has just handed the Republicans a huge and simple talking point. We need and intelligence officer; never matter that we've had those and they haven't worked out at all. The Obama team now has to make a two step argument; it's like the gas tax stuff on steroids.

Feinstein and Rockefeller should be made to pay a price for this IMO. This was a bitch slap to the new administration and it can not be allowed to stand.

Note to Feinstein: You're in Bush's torture-club up to your elbows, and the world under a Panetta CIA will know of it in short order. Justice IS coming, Senator; it is coming, and it is bringing your one-way ticket to the infernal regions on a silver platter....

Taxi to the dark side...

Dianne hopped on a long time ago.

Now you know why I gave all my money to Obama and none to the DNC...

Now you know why I want Barack to seize the reins of the unitary presidency and flog away...

and it was not a deliberate move to do an end-run around Feinstein

probably the first big mis-step

Not so much. They consulted Ron Wyden instead. (Note Bloomberg's classic "buried lede.")

Hey Feinstein and Rockefeller - eat my shorts.

Panetta is gonna get you ya very very serious people.

Not so much. They consulted Ron Wyden instead.

Well, that's interesting. Extremely so.

Quite, shortstop.

as pointed out above, some members of the senate intel committee were given a heads up, just not the ones with blood on their hands. i hope they can steamroll panetta in, but DiFi and the senator from verizon have a lot to cover up.

One of the more obvious questions that arises from the critiques from "experts" about Panetta's intelligence experience:

What intelligence experience did George H.W. Bush have when President Gerald Ford picked him for Director of the CIA in 1976?

Answer? Very little.

Hint: He had been a congressman for less time than Panetta, a RNC chair, ambassador to the UN briefly, envoy (not ambassador) to China briefly. In all of these jobs he certainly had less executive responsibility and contacts with CIA types than Panetta had as the White House Chief of Staff under Clinton. Unless you count his experience as RNC chair under Nixon during Watergate.

Yet everyone always points to GHW Bush's time at the CIA as an important part of his resume.

I don't see any directly relevant intelligence experience prior to his appointment, do you?

dianne feinstein's office is experiencing heavy call traffic.

sounds like she's getting "feedback."

Something very pecular about these dems suddenly growing a spine about anything. Follow the money.

As a Californian, I will call Feinstein's office personally to tell her to FUCK OFF. That bitch gives our state a bad name and I can't wait to see her thrown out of office.

Senator Feinstein's monstrous sense of entitlement is getting to be really annoying. She was an impressive person back in her San Francisco years, but too many years living in privilege has dulled her mind and made her utterly full of herself.

I certainly hope that she gets invited for a little talk with the new President. We probably won't hear about it, but I'll gamble that she's going to change her tune. If she actually tries to block Obama's choice during the confirmation, I suspect that the consequences for her would be drastic. Yes, she's a powerful senior senator. But the game in Washington has changed, at least a little, and she's not dealing with the idiots from the Bush administration.

"Senator Ron Wyden consulted, first"

The Oregonian is a touch slow on this, but, they did tell us our snow is gone.

The louder Feinstein complains, the more her role in all of the Bush atrocities should be brought into public discourse. If I were Obama, I would put it all back on HER.

What does Hayden have on DiFi and Rocky 4?

I have more concern about Frankenfeistein being a US Senator than I do with Panetta taking the reigns of the CIA. Just follow the money and "oops there she is" (again).. Dear grandma, isn't it time to retire?

Something very pecular about these dems suddenly growing a spine about anything. Follow the money.

Agreed. Good post.

Despite all the valid criticisms of Feinstein here in both the post and the comments (and these, really, are just the tip of the iceberg), Senator Useless is the early favorite for the California Democratic nomination for Governor next year. Ain't life grand in the modern Democratic Party?

A note from a California constituent of both Leon Panetta's and Diane Feinstein's. Feinstein has long seen Panetta as a threat to her in-state political ambitions, though I don't remember ever seeing or hearing that he did anything to support that belief. I covered Panetta as a public radio reporter before and after he left the Clinton admin. There was some local pressure for him to run for governor (a position Feinstein has long coveted) but he never rose to the bait, saying he didn't have a statewide base. It doesn't surprise me that Feinstein would resist anything having to do with Panetta.

Something very pecular about these dems suddenly growing a spine about anything.

Not really. Democrats in Congress always have a spine when it comes to dealing with a Democratic executive branch. That's a fact which has helped Democrats snap defeat from the jaws of victory many times in the past.

Democrats in Congress only roll over for Republicans in the White Hosue.

If Obama's people didn't leak it, then how did it get out? Anybody have a clue on that?