I have to say, from what I know about him, I have real issues with Leo Panetta being in charge of the CIA. In my opinion this is a potentially bad call by Obama.

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President-elect Barack Obama is naming Leon Panetta, a former congressman from California and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, to be CIA director. Obama also has picked retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence, overseeing all the nation's spy agencies, a Democratic official said.

The selection pairs a top military man with a quintessential Washington insider.

The surprise choice of Panetta brings one of the more colorful Clinton administration figures back to Washington in one of the nation’s most sensitive jobs.

The nation’s two top intelligence posts were the two biggest appointments left to be made by the president-elect, along with a replacement for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who withdrew as the Obama's choice for commerce secretary.

An official said the timing of the joint announcement had not been decided.

Obama had struggled to fill both jobs, having to turn to second choices in both cases.

Panetta, 71, is currently director of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Panetta told the Monterey County Herald in November that had been consulting with top Obama advisers about White House appointments, but said he was unlikely to be tapped for a post.

"You can see a lot of chess pieces moving around,” Panetta said.

Before retiring in 2002, Blair was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command.

From Blair’s biography: “During his 34-year Navy career, Admiral Blair served on guided missile destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and commanded the Kitty Hawk Battle Group. Ashore, he served as Director of the Joint Staff and as the first Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support at the CIA. He has also served in budget and policy positions on the National Security Council and several major Navy staffs. A 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Blair earned a master’s degree in History and Languages from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and served as a White House Fellow at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

From Panetta’s biography: “From 1989 to 1993, Panetta was chairman of the House Committee on the Budget. He also served as a member of that committee from 1979 to 1985. … Panetta left Congress in 1993, at the beginning of his ninth term, to become Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the incoming Clinton administration. Panetta was appointed Chief of Staff to President Clinton on July 17, 1994, and served in that position until January 20, 1997.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17072.html