Updated below.
Leon Panetta to head CIA?
Former Congressman, former White House Chief of Staff, former member of the (largely-ignored by Bush) Iraq Study Group.
Well, you can't get much more outside of the normal Intelligence Community than he is. Maybe that's a good thing. He's supposed to be a very good manager, which after Porter Goss's tenure would be a welcome change. He'd succeed Michael Hayden, who's been entirely too happy to defend Bush's torture policy for my taste.
Update: One thing you can say about Panetta; he's unequivocally opposed to torture as an interrogation tool.
Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.
That's how I feel too.
Posted by Linkmeister at January 5, 2009 12:16 PM | TrackBack