My Congressman Is A Spy

Leon Panetta, from the BBC website

Talk about stunned. I thought Leon Panetta had resigned from politics for good and now I read that he is to be the next CIA Chief. His family is from the Central Coast of California a place where Italian immigrants made lives for themselves fishing sardines on Monterey Bay or growing vegetables in the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys and along the coast towards San Francisco. He served in the Nixon administration when he was a Republican but his politics changed with the times and he became a Democrat and represented the Monterey/Santa Cruz District for years, unbeatable and a powerful voice for the region. I adored Leon Panetta in a way that was most unbecoming for a reporter and I was devastated when he was selected by Bill Clinton in his second term to straighten up the White House. Which he did, getting through the Monica Lewinsky affair without a stain on his character as it were, or his decency.

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He never had a future in statewide California politics, he wasn't radical enough or loud enough, he was too smart and too willing to see both sides of a story. He retained his Republican roots enough that he wanted a balanced federal budget but he was pragmatic enough that he talked the first President Bush into a tax increase that subsequently scuttled his chances of a second term in 1992. California, a state of 25 million (then) was too large to see a potential Governor or even a Senator in the Central Coast Congressman always labelled a leftist, somewhat unfairly I thought. Hell, I was further to the left of Leon.

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I was not happy that President-elect Obama chose the Governor of Iowa to head the department of Agriculture, but I acknowledged it was a sop to the vast millions that Obama received from ethanol producers so we are stuck with that...But Leon Panetta as head of the CIA sets a whole new tone for the country's foreign policy and standing in the world. Panetta is a pragmatist but he is honest and decent and smart, He opposed, loudly, the Contra War in Nicaragua, and he has spoken out repeatedly against torture. He is a canny and able politicians so he will change the mindset of people who think torturing people is ever justified. He will be effective and he will stay out of the limelight. I will eat my hat if he isn't judged the best CIA chief the Agency has seen.

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Panetta also has to his credit a remarkable sense of humor. When he was appointed White House Chief of Staff I asked him how the process went, that of getting a job at the White House. I mean haven't you ever wondered who goes over your W4 with you? And do they explain the paperwork properly? Did they make an offer? ( Kind of, not the kind you refuse, he chuffed with his inimitable held-in laugh). He paused when I asked if there was a pay raise. (A little more than his congressional salary but not enough to make a difference to a millionaire). He giggled, I guess I'll find out. Interestingly enough when he was a Congressman Panetta made a point every year of returning to the Treasury any portion of his Congressional expense account he hadn't spent. Every year. Washington could use more people like Leon. I wish him well.