{"id":185575,"date":"2014-10-07T20:04:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T01:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/07\/well-this-explains-a-lot-5\/"},"modified":"2014-10-07T20:04:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T01:04:00","slug":"well-this-explains-a-lot-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/07\/well-this-explains-a-lot-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Well, This Explains a Lot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former CIA Director Leon Panetta has now revealed that <a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2014\/10\/07\/panetta-says-rahm-emanuel-cussed-cooperating-senate-torture-inquiry\/\">Rahm Emanuel attempted to cut him a new one for his cooperation with the Senate investigation of torture<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, in his new book, describes being  summoned to a White House meeting and cussed out by President Obama\u2019s  chief of staff after he agreed to give the Senate intelligence committee  access to documents chronicling the agency\u2019s use of torture during the  Bush administration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president wants to know who the f%$# authorized this release to  the committees,\u201d Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama\u2019s chief of staff and  enforcer in 2009 and 2010, is quoted as saying while slamming the table  for emphasis.<\/p>\n<p>Panetta\u2019s book, <i><a href=\"http:\/\/thepenguinpress.com\/book\/worthy-fights-a-memoir-of-leadership-in-war-and-peace\/\">Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace<\/a><\/i>, is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/10\/07\/world\/middleeast\/ex-defense-secretary-panetta-tells-of-frustrations-with-obama.html\">blunt<\/a> account of his time as Obama\u2019s CIA director and, later, Secretary of Defense.<\/p>\n<p>He describes being micromanaged and second-guessed by White House aides  who seemed focused on political appearance over substance.&nbsp;White House  pushback on the Senate torture inquiry, which came despite Obama\u2019s  pledge to run the most transparent administration ever, is in that way  typical \u2013 as is Emanuel\u2019s profane tirade. (Emanuel, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2010\/03\/02\/rahm-emanuel-saboteur-of_n_482638.html\">I\u2019ve written before<\/a>, saw even the most deeply moral and legal decisions in purely political terms.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Panetta describes then-director of national intelligence Dennis Blair as coming to his rescue, asking Emanuel:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">\u201cIf the president\u2019s hair is on fire,\u201d he retorted, \u201cI want to know who the f%$# set his hair on fire.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Blair was fired in May 2010 and replaced by James Clapper, with sources citing as a main reason \u201ct<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/22\/us\/politics\/22intel.html\">he mutual distrust<\/a>  between the White House and members of Mr. Blair\u2019s staff.\u201d John  Brennan, who was then Obama\u2019s counter-terrorism adviser and is now CIA  director, was one of the people Panetta implied had set the president\u2019s  hair on fire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I do not know whether Obama never had any intention to create openness, or if folks like James Clapper and John Brennan managed to get him to swallow their sky is falling bullsh%$.<\/p>\n<p>It really doesn&#8217;t matter.<\/p>\n<p>Hope and change, my flabby white ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former CIA Director Leon Panetta has now revealed that Rahm Emanuel attempted to cut him a new one for his cooperation with the Senate investigation of torture: Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, in his new book, describes being summoned to a White House meeting and cussed out by President Obama\u2019s chief of staff after he &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,970,1051,1102,1103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-corruption","category-hypocrisy","category-intelligence","category-secrecy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}