And JFK, for all his money and movie star appeal, lost his first bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Are we seeing a progressive scaling back in our expectations for our national leaders?

I don’t know enough about these waters to assess. Perhaps Panetta’s tenures as budget director and chief of staff under Clinton does make Panetta more knowledgeable about intelligence than he appears.

Nonetheless, I am struck this past year by the Democrats’ and Democrat voters’ repudiation of experience as a major qualification for running the highest levels of US government.

Starting with Obama himself, an undistinguished junior senator, to Al Franken, a comedian and satirist, and now Caroline Kennedy, a socialite with a very special last name, there seems to be no bottom to who the Democrats will pick for running things.

http://www.slate.com/id/2208020/

and and intresting post at NRO:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDQ3ZmRmNTQyY2ZiNzY5NjIxMzk3NjJkZTNhNGMzNTY=

Both are in favor of the Panetta pick. I don’t know how things will work out, but I woudn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions.

More likely, he is going to rely on General Jones to tell him what he wants to hear. Obama has never been known for his loyalty…

A well coined line, except, it’s exactly backwards and becoming quite clear that “performance art” is all we are going to get. Obama isn’t interested in American national security or “intelligence”, he never was, other than recently suggesting that he “thought” about enlisting in the military, but the war was over… a joke really, is anyone gullible enough to believe that? I’m getting repetitive here, but this is a (formerly) United States Senator who did everything possible, personally, to undermine the war in Iraq. He is a master manipulator, more than he is “smart”, and has always and only been interested, not in traditional American values and institutions, but in far left-wing ideology and muslim radical agendas. This focus is well exemplified in his political activism and orientation, academic acquaintances, and intimate personal friends for at least three decades; From his college years (visiting Pakistan when it was illegal for American citizens), until he quit Wright’s church to placate the mainstream media and their shallow majority audience; From unprecedented voter registration and campaign finance fraud, to his foundation in the notoriously corrupt Chicago Democratic Party political culture; To his obfuscation of his personal history, an almost total lack of transparency exemplified by his failure to open the most mundane of records, including an authentic birth certificate, selective service registration, college records and papers. Starting January 20, America, and especially Israel, may be in more serious long-term jeapardy than anyone is possibly imagining.

Wow. That’s optimism in action. I dearly hope you are right, but I have no previous evidence to believe that.

I have some cynicism in action for you: It doesn’t matter who he appoints as CIA Director, they really couldn’t do any worse: The CIA has as much to do with intelligence as the Department of Education has to do with teaching 8th graders math.

My previous evidence? I had the misfortune of working with them a little in the 90s. It was a very nice AIDS Quilt in the lobby at Langley, but it really didn’t help protect America; as we all learned on 9/11.

Remember Mike Spann http://www.honormikespann.org/

Under supported; undermanned; unbelievable….

Maybe there is hope that we will be in for more than just government as performance art for the next four years.