Leon Panetta is a scary, scary man

[MADem]

24. He was in the House. CA 16th District, south of SF, agricultural area, mostly.

He garnered a lot of national defense street cred down the years -- mainly because FT Ord and the NPGS used to be in his district (they redrew the lines so who knows what that district looks like today).

Bottom line--he's old, pushing eighty, and as you noted he is selling a book.

This is a tempest in a teapot in the big scheme, but I do think it is part of a "roll out" for 2016 in the sense that no matter who the candidate is, no matter what party, they always have to "run against" the incumbent. Al Gore "ran against" Bill Clinton by putting Lieberman (who excoriated POTUS on the Senate floor) on his ticket. People are always thirsty for change when an election presents an opportunity for one, so there has to be an element of criticism of the status quo, even if it is somewhat manufactured/hyped, in order for a candidate to break out and not just be more of the same.

Politicians who are in power while this dynamic is playing out, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, understand this, they don't necessarily love it because they are getting the critique/finger wags, but they don't take it all that seriously, either. It's par for the course.