Posted on 10/14/2013 7:22:17 PM PDT by kristinn
Leon Panetta served in Washington with nine presidents, starting with Lyndon Johnson. He has been a member of Congress, Office of Management and Budget director, White House chief of staff, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and secretary of defense — the last two under President Obama. He is a man who knows Washington and knows how to choose his words. So Panetta’s implicit rebuke of the president’s hands-off approach to the budget crisis at a breakfast Monday was striking.
Indeed, implicit may be an understatement. Asked repeatedly whether he was being correctly understood as critical of President Obama, Panetta was careful to assert that “I don’t want to put it all on the president” and that there is “enough blame to go around.” But he did not spare Obama.
“We govern either by leadership or crisis... If leadership is not there, then we govern by crisis,” Panetta said at the start of the session, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. “Clearly, this town has been governing by crisis after crisis after crisis.”
Which raised the obvious question: What does this say about the president’s leadership?
Several observations ensued. “This town has gotten a lot meaner in the last few years.” Relationships have deteriorated. Redistricting into safe seats hasn’t helped. Neither has the explosion of money in campaigns, or the elimination of earmarks. (Negotiating one Clinton budget, Panetta recalled, “I think I sold about six bridges to get there.”)
Then, to Obama. “This president — he’s extremely bright, he’s extremely able, he’s somebody who I think certainly understands the issues, asks the right questions, and I think has the right instincts about what needs to be done for the country.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You wanted it, you got it, you’re the goat!
Panetta!??
Has retirement mellowed him . . . . . or just made him senile? He NEVER goes against der Furher, no matter who he is!
Nah. He is just speaking as a proxy for his Clintonian masters.
Ping
Thomas Jefferson:
"Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte's dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected."
Is Leon the Panetta considering running for POTUS against the “Most Admired Woman in America?”
Whatever will Mrs. Bill Clinton do if that is true? Oh me! Oh my!
BTW, wasn’t Leon P. put in charge of operations by Barry S. on the night of the Benghazi Massacre?
Sounds like a lack of leadership quality to me - - - .
What’s the Clintonistas’ plan here?
And after the press paints all the left as “united” and the so-called conservatives “divided” too. Reality hits home . . .
A hands-off President is lazy and inept. That's what we have right now.
He’s just a racist.(/s)
Five lies in one sentence. Pretty good, even for a Clintonista.
And he's really not doing so here.
If Leon P was in charge during Benghazi-night, then he had to be one of the people who told the SPECOPs forces to stand down. Would he, the seasoned politician, do that?
Panetta’s son is navy Intel, and good ole Leon let those Bengazi SEALs die
I think that says a very lot.
This can be traced to, and directly correlated with, the rise of the new media and the demise of the Democrat "mainstream" newsroom monopoly on the selection, dissemination, and spin of the daily news.
“Perhaps leaders in Washington today might consider Jefferson’s description of how he and his contemporaries in the early days approached matters of interest for the new nation”
in those days, both side were god fearing, good Christian men.
More generally, evil has risen.
True enough; agreed to disagree on policy, but concurred on who the Lord was.
Panetta can be a real d**k. But once in a while, he goes for the jugular when a Democrat is wrong. I gotta give him props for that.
That answer cleared up my ....huh?? Thanks. :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.