The Leon Panetta Problem

The Leon Panetta Problem

10/10/14

W. James Antle III

Domestic Politics, United States

"The bigger problem with Panetta’s critique is this: he assumes that the way to redeem Obama’s disengaged presidency is to arm more rebels, drop more bombs and keep wars going."

Self-awareness seems to be an obstacle to advancement in Washington. Fortunately, it is an attribute most people climbing the greasy pole in this city conspicuously lack.

Consider the reaction to Leon Panetta’s new book Worthy Fights. You would think the media would be ecstatic to have new inside information from the relatively leak-proof Obama administration. Even if Panetta presents the facts in a totally self-serving way—what book by a Washington insider doesn’t?—it still on balance enlarges our store of knowledge about this White House and its decision-making process.

Instead we get pieces questioning Panetta’s loyalty, with all the president’s men bitching (mostly anonymously) to Politico about the former Pentagon chief and stunned Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank clutching his pearls. Panetta has become, almost Olbermann-style, something like the worst person in Washington.

“The lack of message discipline is puzzling, because Obama rewards and promotes loyalists,” Milbank wrote with wide-eyed wonder. “But he’s a cerebral leader, and he may lack the personal attachments that make aides want to charge the hill for him.”

So the press will charge that hill for the cerebral leader instead.

An odd media reaction very much at variance to, say, David Stockman dishing on the Reagan administration. Now, it should be noted that this response has been far from universal. The Washington Post’s Dan Balz praised the book as a public service. National Journal’s Ron Fournier concurred.http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-leon-panetta-problem-11442

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