Who is Leon Panetta? Our new Secretary of Defense, thats who

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     So Robert Gates wife finally convinced him to hang up the suit and retire to the private sector. With two ongoing wars, a conflict in Libya, trouble in Lebanon and high tensions in the Persian Gulf who should the president select to replace Mr. Gates? The White House has confirmed that on Thursday Obama will name Leon Panetta, currently director of the Central Intelligence Agency, as the next Defense secretary.
Who will take the reigns at the CIA?  Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan.

     A Democrat, Lawyer and Professor, Panetta, has been in politics since the 1970s when he was a congressman for the 16th district of California. Most of his work focused on budget issues, civil rights, education, health, and environmental issues such as preventing oil drilling off the California coast during his time as a Congressman. He was re-elected nine times as a Congressman and eventually left his post to take on the role of Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton White House.  He impressed President Clinton so much that he was appointed Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997.
     Panetta was nominated Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by President Obama on January 5, 2009, but not to the approval of a few high powered individuals. There were complaints that Mr. Panetta did not have the necessary intelligence background needed to run such an organization. President Obama's defense of Panetta was that he was President Clinton's chief of staff and sat in on highly sensitive briefs every day for 3 years and had a clear understanding of what the "Three Letter Agencies" (NSA,CIA,DIA,FBI,ext) were all about.  During his time as the director of the CIA, Mr.Panetta, has stated his preference and desire to use Unmanned Ariel Vehicles in a more prevalent role.
     He is a long time friend of Vice President Joe Biden from their time in congress together and has been known to back the VP in heated white house power struggles. This could be an especially important factor in the VP's effort to remove war fighters from Afghanistan. If Mr.Biden gets Panetta to back him completely and knowing Panetta's bias towards UAV's, we could be seeing a fast withdrawal from Afghanistan, or atleast faster than it is currently going.
     I think Leon Panetta will be a good SecDef, he will be the second oldest man to fill that position since its inception, and only time will tell if he will be the man who will be credited with getting our troops out on his watch. I am particularly interested to see how he treats the military members, Secretary Gates twitted this "I've done my best to care for them as if they were my own sons and daughters", I can only hope Panetta feels the same way. He did spend two years as a second and first LT in the Army, so that is a plus.