Face Off! Is Leon Panetta the Right Choice To Head the CIA?

President-elect Obama surprised nearly everyone Monday when he tapped Leon Panetta, former Clinton Chief of Staff and longtime California congressman, to head the Central Intelligence Agency. In today's edition of Face Off, our bloggers consider the choice of Panetta.

Liza Porteus Vana was certainly shocked by Obama's pick. She even felt a little betrayed by the president-elect:

Barack Obama has let me down already.

I would have thought that after all these post-Sept. 11 years of blasting our intelligence agencies for missing this and that, that Obama would have selected as his CIA director someone who is well-versed in international and domestic intelligence, who knows what our shortcomings are on the ground overseas, and who knows how to fix them. But yet, his pick? Leon Panetta.

I'm not criticizing Panetta's abilities to run an agency, or be a great manager, or whether he knows the right people in the right places to get things done.

But of all the positions, this is one where we don't need a bureaucrat. We need a spy - er, I mean, intelligence professional - at least, as close to one as we can get. Bin Laden's still out there, as are other Al Qaeda leaders, along with a host of other people who, by now, want to kill us.

Read Liza's full post here.

On the other hand, Tommy Christopher says Panetta is a fine choice, a man with a long track record as a manager who can re-focus the intelligence agencies after the missteps of the past eight years.

Panetta ... has decades of experience in Washington, and could be seen as a firewall against the kinds of abuses that occurred during the Bush era. As a former White House Chief of Staff, he does have extensive experience in the use of intelligence, having attended daily intel briefings in that capacity.

He is also known for his managerial skill, a very important quality in the new world of hydra-headed intelligence agencies. While you definitely want pros gathering the intel, you need a good manager to make sure it gets shared and distributed properly.

Check out Tommy's complete piece here, then weigh in and tell us which blogger you agree with more.