Sen. Feinstein Hits Back Against Obama's CIA Pick; Rep. Jane Harman Passed Over for Job

Sen. Dianne Feinstein — who begins the job this week as first-ever female chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee — isn’t happy about the pick of Leon Panetta for CIA director.

But it’s hard to tell whether she’s more upset over the fact that she doesn’t think he’s the best person for the job, or that Barack Obama didn’t give her the heads-up about his decision. And does this mean she will lead the charge against Panetta during his confirmation hearings, which she will oversee? We’re not so sure it will come to that, but she will definitely have some tough questions for the former Clintonite.

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director," said Feinstein, D-CA. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

The outgoing committee chair, Sen. John Rockefeller, D-WV, also doesn’t quite agree with the pick.

A senior aide told the LA Times that while Rockefeller "thinks very highly of Panetta … he’s puzzled by the selection. He has concerns because he has always believed that the director of CIA needs to be someone with significant operational intelligence experience and someone outside the political realm."

The word is that Obama’s transition team passed over many other people with actual CIA experience for the job – as well as some Democrats in Congress who would be qualified – because they were somehow too close to the Bush administration anti-terror policies, or, at the very least, they at one point agreed with them.

Take Rep. Jane Harman, D-CA, for example. This intelligence-savvy lady, formerly the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was considered for the job, but, according to The New York Times, "she was ruled out as a candidate in part because of her early support for some Bush administration programs like the domestic eavesdropping program." That would be the surveillance program that tapped the phone conversations between someone outside of this country and someone in; at least one party would have to be a suspected terrorist.

OK, but she was one of the only lawmakers in the know to denounce waterboarding from the start (which, unfortunately, is more than we can say for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA).

Harman, who spent eight years on the House Intelligence Committee – the final four as Ranking Member – helped shape Congress’s policy response to the 9/11 attacks and played a leading role in the creation and passage of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. She’s currently chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence & Terrorism Risk Assessment, and is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. In her prior life, she was a top Senate aide, deputy Cabinet secretary to President Jimmy Carter, and special counsel at the Defense Department. Sounds pretty qualified.

Although many are questioning Obama’s surprise pick of Panetta, others are saying he will do a great job of getting the CIA’s house in order.

If Panetta is confirmed, his wife Sylvia is expected to take the helm of his Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University-Monterey Bay, which they established. Speakers who have visited the institute include secretary of state nominee Hillary Clinton and former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

University President Dianne Harrison said she had been "assured by Leon that Sylvia will continue to run the institute and it will be business as usual."

The Senate confirmation hearings are sure to be interesting. Maybe then we’ll see what Panetta is really all about, and whether he can, in fact, help the CIA become the world-class spy agency it’s supposed to be.