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Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The report concluded that the attack, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, was "preventable." Some have been suggesting that the blame for this tragedy lies at least partly with Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack. This is untrue: The blame lies entirely with Washington. The report states that retired Gen. Carter Ham, then-commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, twice offered to "sustain" the special forces security team in Tripoli...

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Sunday slammed Congress on CNN's State of the Union naming them the biggest threat to national security. Host Jim Acosta asked Panetta if President Obama is going to be able to work with Republicans to get his war measure against ISIS passed. But before an answer was provided, Acosta read something Panetta had previously written criticizing the president: “He does, however, lack fire. Too often, in my view, the president relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader. But now, Panetta has changed his tune and...

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is "afraid" what will happen when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a joint session of Congress next month. "I'm afraid what is going to happen here with what Netanyahu will do is to make this partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans and that makes it a very dangerous trap," Panetta said on CNN's "State of the Union." Netanyahu has said he plans to use his speech before Congress to criticize the administration's negotiations with Iran, which he claims are threatening Israel. Panetta said he hopes lawmakers are able to find another way...

The Obama administration's nominee for a senior legal position at the Pentagon is one of the congressional staffers accused by Republicans and intelligence officials of stealing classified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, Fox News has learned -- and the controversy could imperil her shot at a major career promotion. Sources on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community say Alissa Starzak, a majority staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) who has been nominated for the position of general counsel to the U.S. Army, is one of two SSCI employees accused by the panel's Republicans, and by...

That’s good news.I was worried somebody might to be blame for the murder of four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, in a poorly secured compound that was supposed to be protected by a terrorist militia that wasn’t actually being paid in the middle of a city run by terrorists… after support forces were repeatedly told not to come to the aid of the Americans under attack.Also nobody is to blame for claiming that the whole thing was caused by a YouTube video.But it’s all nobody’s fault. That’s such a relief. We should just MoveOn and elect Hillary to...

Largely lost in the hubbub over former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s new book Worthy Fights is one intriguing revelation. As reported in the New York Times, the accusations that Barack Obama was not what he appeared to be, perhaps not even a natural-born citizen, caused him to become tentative on the national stage. “Those challenges have encouraged the president’s caution and defensiveness, which in turn has emboldened further challenges,” Mr. Panetta wrote. As the originator of one of those challenges, namely that terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers helped Obama with his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, I can confirm the...

Much is being written about the revelations in former secretary of defense and CIA chief Leon Panetta’s new book, “Worthy Fights,” regarding President Obama’s inadequacies and mistakes as commander in chief. The Panetta revelations have provoked a fresh appraisal of similar disclosures from former secretary of defense Bob Gates in his book and the more gentle — but still direct — criticisms of the president found in former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s book. None of these individuals are amateurs. They were not manipulated into writing what they did by greedy publishers hoping to sell books. They are not a...

Fmr. Defense Secretary Blames Obama For Ignoring His Advice In Iraq By Becky Brittain October 3, 2014 Fmr. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Obama should have left troops in Iraq Panetta says other military commanders shared his views Despite this, Panetta says U.S. troops should not be sent back to Iraq Panetta served as Obama's Secretary of Defense from 2011 until 2013 Washington (CNN) -- President Obama's former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, says if the White House had listened to his advice on U.S. troop levels in Iraq, the country's security situation may not have unraveled. "To this day, I...

Political strategist Dick Morris accused Hillary Clinton of conspiring with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in his stinging critique of President Obama's foreign policy. "I think Hillary put him up to it,” Morris said during an interview on John Catsimatidis's radio show to air Sunday on New York's 970 AM. “What Panetta is doing is a hit – a contract killing – for Hillary. Panetta at core is a Clinton person, not an Obama person. By accurately and truthfully describing the deliberations in the [Obama] cabinet, he makes Hillary look better, and he makes Obama look worse … And I...

Remember when dissent was patriotic? When people like Hillary Clinton screeched that "we have a right to disagree with any administration?" Forget about it. That's so, like, 2003. You know, when George W. Bush was President. Things are different today. Now, criticizing a sitting president is wrong. Very wrong. Just ask Joe Scarborough, who on today's Morning Joe accused Leon Panetta of a "lack of character" for criticizing President Obama in his book and public appearances. View the video here.

A senator. A House member. A former presidential campaign manager. An adviser to President Obama. All Democrats, these officials have made it a habit to call or email me almost every week of Obama's second term to share their concerns about the course of his presidency. They ask only that I don't identify them. Some fear retribution; others don't want to compromise their financial or political standing inside their party. These Democrats speak admirably about the president's intellect, integrity, and intentions, but they question his leadership—an admittedly squishy term that can be unfairly deployed against people with the guts to...

Former CIA director and SecDef Leon Panetta has been all over television the last couple of days, from the Today show to The O’Reilly Factor, flogging his new book Worthy Fights. He has been saying a lot of bad things about Obama and his administration — the weakness vis-a-vis ISIS and Islamic terrorism in general, the absurd pretense that al-Qaeda (and consequently Islamic extremism) had been defeated, the prevarications (polite term) about Benghazi, etc. — that many of us, to say the least, rather strongly suspected. He has appeared extremely worried about the future of our country and the world,...

All presidents have had in-house critics. But rarely has a president faced the degree of public criticism from former senior Cabinet members that Obama has this year. ... (L.A. Times excerpt)

Bill O’Reilly put former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on the hot seat tonight, and repeatedly grilled him on whether President Obama‘s foreign policy has been effective or a failure. Panetta insisted to O’Reilly that he doesn’t doubt Obama’s commitment to fighting America’s enemies, there’s just a question of whether he’s made the right decisions in carrying out that fight. For example, Panetta says Obama did support providing a troop presence of thousands in Iraq, as he and others recommended, but the issue was “how hard did he fight to make it happen.” O’Reilly asked Panetta why it feels like the...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he knew Benghazi was a “terrorist attack” from the beginning, despite the Obama administration touting the incident was a “spontaneous demonstration.” Panetta made the comments on MSNBC on Tuesday during an interview with Andrea Mitchell. “I didn’t have any specific information, but the fact was–when you bring grenade launchers to a demonstration, there’s something else going on,” Panetta said. “And I just, from the very beginning, sensed that this was an attack. This was a terrorist attack on our compound.” In the secretary’s new book, Worthy Fights, he outlines his criticism of President Obama...

Former Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has dropped what may be the biggest bombshell yet on his former boss. Panetta appeared on MSNBC today and explained that he knew, from the beginning, that the attack on the US facility in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, was a terrorist attack. President Obama did not see it that way, and his actions that night remain a mystery. Host Andrea Mitchell asked Panetta, “You wrote in the book that you disagreed with David Petraeus and told the situation room he thought it was a spontaneous demonstration outside the consulate that night. Why...

Tuesday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared President Barack Obama's approach to be like a law professor, however without the aspect of rolling up his sleeves and to get the job done. Instead he suggested Obama has given up. Panetta said, "He [Obama] approaches things like a law professor in presenting a logic of his position. There is nothing wrong with that. We want to have a president who thinks through the issues. My experience in Washington is that logic alone doesn't work. Once you lay out a position, you are going to roll up...

[W]hile the media focuses on the substance of Panetta’s arguments against a sitting president and former boss — which would seem out of character especially for a long-time member of the political establishment — there is an underlying motive for why Panetta might be criticizing the president beyond mere fact-cleansing that the media may be wholly ignoring...

Seriously? How did he get in? The same way every other illegal alien gets here: he just showed up at the door with his pathogens. No questions asked. Come on in!Illegal aliens saying “thanks for the hospitality” in Esperanto – the universal languageAnd why, you ask yourself, do people still believe what they are told by “officials” who always seem to have one or more ulterior motives in play? Give up? Me too. And I don’t know what more I can do; I’ve tried to instill as much cynicism as possible in order to ensure the survival of the human...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s memoir has a release date of next Tuesday, but it may make headlines for the next several days. According to Taegan Goddard at Political Wire, Worthy Fights blames the Obama administration for allowing Iraq to collapse, thanks to a political desire to pull out trumping the security needs that should have had us maintain our presence and exert our influence to keep Sunnis and Shi’ites working together: Panetta writes that “our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in...