I know a quick trick to determine the priorities in any program, look at the budget.

The US intelligence is $47½ billion dollars, with about 80% of that amount in the control of the Pentagon.

That actually puts the CIA pretty far down on the totem pole of priorities, and with the creation of the Director of National Intelligence, they no longer give the President the most expensive reading material in the world, the Presidential Daily Briefing.

First, we have a letter from a career military intelligence professional to Josh Marshall who makes a very legitimate point, that recently, particularly over the last 8 years, the CIA has been increasingly cast as an organ of the Pentagon, and that this is not the essential role of the CIA.

The essential role of the CIA is to provide the civilian decision makers, particularly POTUS, with the information that they need to make their decisions, not the provision of targeting data to Predator drones.

So, just who is Leon Panetta, and what does it mean for the intelligence community in an Obama administration?

Obviously, his forceful rejection of torture and warrantless wiretaps is the first thing that comes to mind.

This implies that as DCIA, he will be looking into what happened, and why with the domestic spying and torture, and (hopefully) it will mean the end of these programs. (I’m not enough of an optimist to believe that there will be referrals for prosecution).

Also, there is a bit of almost 20 year old history regarding Panetta and Congressional oversight of intelligence:

And there’s this: in 1990, then-Representative Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced legislation that would have required the president to seek approval from the congressional intelligence committees before mounting most covert operations. (Under this legislation, the president could still stage secret ops to save American lives or rescue American hostages without asking permission from the committees.) The measure failed miserably. Only 70 members voted for it, but one was Panetta. Will that vote come up during his confirmation hearings? One wonders if Panetta still supports the idea of greater congressional oversight of CIA clandestine activities.

He was one of 70 people voting for this, so we can be reasonably assured of his support for Congressional oversight: he is unlikely to “go native,” and start stonewalling Congress.

That being said, his real job will be to fight the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the Pentagon, and its institutional imperative towards total control of the complete intelligence apparatus.

Panetta was Chairman of the House Budget committee, head of the Office of Management, and finally Bill Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff, and this background makes him uniquely suited to dealing with the separation of the CIA from the military octopus.

His background is budgets, bureaucracy, and access to the President, and these are precisely the levers that need to be worked in order for the CIA do its job properly.

Someone like Feinstein’s^* favorite Steve Knappes, may very well have more hands on experience with intelligence, but he doesn’t have is the ability to thread the various needles, both in the White House, and with the Congress, to create in voice in intelligence agency that is separate from the Pentagon (and to a lesser degree the State Department), has the resources to collect the intelligence.

More importantly, Leon Panetta has the skills to make sure that this intelligence is presented to, and seriously considered by, the President and the rest of the national security apparatus.

^*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers.

First on the inside baseball angle, it appears that some of the intel war horses, particularly in the Senate, are upset at the choice, and how it was made public.

Both Senators Feinstein^* the new Intel Committee chairman, and Rockefeller, the outgoing chairman, have strongly expressed reservations about the appointment, based largely on their feelings that he lacks the experience to handle the CIA.

Someone, probably on the one of the two Senators’ staff, stated to NPR (I heard it on Morning Edition), that Leon Panetta was the least experienced appointment to head the CIA since John McCone in 1961.

That is not true.

A quick perusal of the DCIs gives a 1976 appointment who was significantly less experienced: 4 years in Congress, UN Ambassador, and Envoy to China before his appointment, as compared to Pannetta’s 16 years in Congress, his chairmanship of the House Budget Committee, with heading the OMB, and serving as Clinton’s chief of staff.

That relatively inexperienced DCI? George Herbert Walker Bush, who is still viewed with the affection that 6-year-olds reserve for Santa Clause among CIA old-timers.

What is interesting is that it appears that Feinstein^* and Rockefeller, were blind sided by this announcement, while relatively less senior Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), was briefed and supports the decision, and this sentiment is mirrored by House intelligence committee chairman Silvestre Reyes and Rush Holt, Chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel.

Additionally, you have Senators Pat Roberts Barbara Mikulski (scroll down), and Russ Feingold, , with Evan Bayh (true to form) waffling.

We are now hearing a sort of an apology by Joe Biden, “I’m still a Senate man and I always think this way: I think it’s always good to talk to the requisite members of Congress,” said Biden. “I think it was just a mistake,” but it’s a fairly perfunctory apology.

I do not think that this is an accident. We have a transition team that has professional OCD. They have a job application form that kills more trees than Paul Bunyan, and famously tight lips, people like this don’t “forget” to notify the current and former Chairmen of the Senate Intel Committee.

This is Chicago style payback for something, and it has at least tacit approval from the top (PEBO).

So, they Rockefeller and Feinstein^* f^%$ed with Barack Obama over something, and now he’s dropping something on them by way of lesson….It’s not a piano, it’s more like emptying a chamber pot on their heads.

Gee, I can’t imagine what on earth they could have done to Barack Obama that would have thought that he was being messed with? I don’t know, maybe something that had Keith Olbermann going special comment on him? Something like that disgraceful telco immunity bill that Rockefeller and Feinstein^* pushed so hard through the Senate?

We know that Obama voted for the bill, but it was painfully clear that this was not something that he wanted to deal with at that time, it being mere weeks after he cinched the nomination, and it was equally clear that it was a phenomenally bad bill.

Barack Obama, or someone very senior in his staff, believe that Rockefeller and Feinstein pushed the bill to cover their own posteriors. They are accessories to illegal wiretaps and torture, and while Congressional immunity may protect them, they would much rather not have to find out how a judge rules.

I think that this is why you have seen the meticulously botched roll-out of Leon Panetta: It’s botched enough to turn the knife, but not botched enough prevent the nomination from leaving the Senate Intelligence committee.

I’ll post about what I think the bigger picture is in terms of what this means for the intelligence establishment later. (I actually find that bit more interesting)

Anyway, that’s what I think. I could be wrong, and Atrios could be right:

It’s about the club, insider knowledge and privilege, and, yes, crimes, criminals, and their enablers.

Gotta keep it in the family, otherwise who knows what might happen?

^*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers.