Feinstein Explains Her Reticence About Panetta Nomination

[babylonsister]

Hmmm. Will she or won't she fight the confirmation? Unclear...

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/feinstein_on_panetta.php

Feinstein Explains Her Reticence About Panetta Nomination
By Elana Schor - January 6, 2009, 1:09PM


Just talked with Dianne Feinstein outside the Senate chamber about her qualms with the Leon Panetta nomination. The incoming Senate intelligence committee chairman said that both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden called her after the fact to discuss the surprise choice of Panetta, who has no direct intelligence agency experience and whose nomination came as unwelcome news to Feinstein when it broke yesterday.

"I understand their thinking" in choosing Panetta, Feinstein explained, describing herself as "very respectful of the president's authority ... this is the man {Obama has chosen}."

I asked Feinstein whether her reticence about Panetta's lack of ties to the CIA would be mitigated by having Steven Kappes, her preferred choice for CIA director, stay on as the agency's No 2. "I believe very strongly" that Kappes should stay, Feinstein said, adding that Panetta's standing would be "very much enhanced" were Kappes to stay his deputy.

Feinstein seemed to acknowledge the Obama team's desire to find a CIA director who would signal an end to the abusive interrogation tactics of the Bush years. "We all want a break with the past," she told the reporters milling around her in the Senate. "I was the one who went into the conference committee" between the House and the Senate last year with an amendment that would use the Army Field Manual as the universal standard for detainee interrogations, she added.

"I understand the administration's desire to cut clean and open a new chapter and I support that. Whether those changes can be made" with Panetta at the helm, she added, remains to be seen.