Panetta, Blair Tapped for Top Intel Posts

Another point for experience over change. Leon Panetta, former congressman and Clinton White House chief of staff, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. With “little hands-on intelligence experience,” The New York Times reports, Panetta “will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe” if he wins confirmation in the Senate. Aides to Obama indicated Panetta was Obama’s second choice, after the more-experience John Brennan withdrew his name from consideration. A less surprising selection is retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, chosen as director of national intelligence; he’s a veteran military man with a 34-year Navy career a history on the Joint Staff and at the CIA.