Although I’ve been working on some other projects the past few days, this came up last weekend and is such a glaring example of how this country in reality will never recover from the last eight years, and since I’d seen no comment about it anywhere in any blogs or news commentaries, I just have to point it out.
The implications are un-nerving to say the least.

How can arrogant incompetence be anything other than asshole-arrogant incompetence?
And how can any form of patriotism cloak criminal, immoral behavior?
Leon Panetta is apparently befuddled by the US Constitution.
Panetta, CIA honcho, scribbled out a piece in Sunday’s Washington Post that banged on the anxiety-filled fright drum of 9/11:

The time has come for both Democrats and Republicans to take a deep breath and recognize the reality of what happened after Sept. 11, 2001.
The question is not the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11. The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could.
Judgments were made.
Some of them were wrong.
But that should not taint those public servants who did their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided.
The last election made clear that the public wanted to move in a new direction.

A new direction, Leon, doesn’t mean to condone crime.

How about all this?
Bush and just plain corruption?
Or George Jr on a even a slightly-longer list of corruption?
Or the use of  torture?
Or lying about Iraq?

Well, Leon, what about all that shit?
The lede on his commentary says it all:

Last month, at a meeting overseas of intelligence service chiefs, one of my counterparts from a major Western ally pulled me aside.
Why, he asked, is Washington so consumed with what the CIA did in the past, when the most pressing national security concerns are in the present?
It was a very good question.
In fact, I’ve become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action.

CIA never gets anything right!
In fact, yesterday from the UK’s Financial Times:

It is reassuring to know that US soldiers in Iraq have such mental skills at their disposal.
But it is worth recalling that the danger they face is the result of hunches with a much weaker basis in reality — intelligence failures now commonly seen as the product of “groupthink” in the US intelligence establishment.

See, Leon, dipshit asshole!