Quote Of The Day

"What we are seeing here is the need for Obama to appease his leftist base, especially after antagonizing them by keeping Gates in the Defense Department. Their collective mouths dropped on that one, I am quite sure. But this isn't the only reason he wants Panetta in this position. One major secondary gain he gets with this nominee is Obama's future ability to micromanage the agency. Picking someone that knows intelligence would not be as easy for Obama to control. The concern in this is, the agency's upper echelon may not keep the proposed director completely in the loop. This will make it difficult for Obama to have adequate oversight. No one need say that Panetta shouldn't be part of the government, return favor or not. Return favors have always been part of the selection process, and they always will be. He is qualified to run something, just not something as important as this." — Political Yen/Yang, moderate-conservative blog, on President-Elect Barack Obama's nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA