Until this appointment, I've been pleased with Obama's cabinet choices ~ but I sure do NOT understand this one ~ I think Panetta is a decent guy, but how/why do you put someone with NO intelligence experience in as chief of the CIA? ~ is the CIA director strictly a managerial job? ~ Sooz

NBC: Obama picks Panetta for CIA director

Leon Panetta was Bill Clinton's chief of staff and Iraq Study Group member

NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 2:03 p.m. CT, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009

NBC News has confirmed that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28508426

I think the "usual suspects" that would be considered 'in line' to take over the CIA were contaminated by the various torture and abuse scandals.

I can't see how Panetta could be any worse.

It's a risky appointment. But Panetta may know more about the job than we give him credit for. It will be interesting to hear how Obama presents him, how he explains it. I'll be he actually does explain it.