Leon Panetta is a scary, scary man

[markpkessinger]

58. What does a post about Diane Rehm have to do with Rachel Maddow;s reporting on the issue?

If you are trying to suggest that Rachel Maddow did her report on Panetta merely because Pabnetta came out with a book critical of the President, youre full of shit. Rachel Maddow has herself been critical of the Obama administration on numerous occasions, so she is hardly someone who goes after someone merely for criticizing President Obama. I mean, Glenn Greenwald has been a frequent guest ob her show, and she never "webt after" him for his criticisms of President Obama. If you watch the segment from Monday nights show, she simply points out that many of Panetta's statements in his book that are critical of Obama's handling of various foreign policy issues are completely inconsistent with his own statements just a short time ago when he was Secretary of Defense, when he vigorously defended those same actions by the President. Maddow's report was not a rush to the President's defense nor an attack on Panetta's position (indeed, she was pointing out that it is hard to know what his true opinions are, given his contradictions of himself). And by way of possible explanation, she pointed out that Panetta is now working for a firm that is very closely tied to Hillary Clinton's prospective 2016 campaign.

Personally, I have had plenty of criticisms of President Obama on quite a number of issues. But I don't agree with Hillary's (and now Leon's) views that we should be taking an even more hawkish approach to foreign policy merely because Hillary and Leon are staking out that position as a vantage point for criticism of President Obama.