Frances Fragos Townsend - CNN "expert" nixes Panetta

[ChairmanAgnostic]

This neocon tool who served the Bush White House in the Department of Homeland Scrutiny, just stated that Leon Panetta is a horrible choice, because he has no experience.

Mind you, this is the woman who claimed there was no national security aspect to Katrina, or to the California forest fires. Who said in her resignation letter, that bush as a leader soared above the others, who claimed that the Patriot Act had no impact on librarians or book sellers.

Considering that she was a NY federal criminal prosecutor, which was, other than her hubby and neocon politics, the only "experience" she had before she was the face of Homeland scrutiny.

Why the HELL did CNN hire her?

[spanone]

1. anyone who thought the rethugs were gonna slink away and be quiet was sorely mistaken

with the help of the complacent media they will come back stronger than ever

[monmouth]

2. GHW Bush had no experience either....n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. but that's not the point.

he was REPUBLICAN. that means he is right, and everyone else is not competent.

Panetta, as chief of staff to a president, as a noted administrator, a smart guy, and well respected by those below and above him, obviously when compared to the brilliant job Frances did as sycophant for W, or should we say, sicko-phant, he really should just resign now, before he even takes office.

[tanyev]

4. She made an interesting appearance in Barton Gellman's book, Angler, about Cheney.

James Comey was trying to get to the bottom of the top-secret surveillance program:


Jim Comey was in the White House that morning, too, arriving early for the president's regular 8:30 terrorism brief. He had heard nothing since the discouraging meeting the day before.

Comey found Frances Fragos Townsend, an old friend, waiting just outside the Oval Office, standing by the appointment secretary's desk. She was Bush's deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism. Comey had known her since their days as New York mob prosecutors in the 1980s. Since then, Townsend had run the Justice Department's intelligence office. She lived and breathed surveillance law.

Comey took a chance. He pulled her back out to the hallway between the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room.

"If I say a word, would you tell me whether you recognize it?" he asked quietly.

He did. She didn't. The program's classified code name left her blank. Comey tried to talk around the subject.

"I think this is something I am not a part of," Townsend said. "I can't have this conversation." Like John Gordon and deputy national security adviser Steven J. Hadley and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, she was out of the loop.

Oh, God, Comey remembers thinking. They've held this so tight. Even Fran Townsend. The president's counterterrorism adviser is not read in? Comey towered over his diminutive friend. He chose his words carefully.

"I need to know," he said, "whether your boss recognizes that word, and whether she's read in on a particular program. Because we had a meeting here yesterday on that topic that I would have expected her to be at."

He meant national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Comey was hoping for an ally, or maybe rescue.


More at the link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302284_pf.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. that tells us:

a) Comey found stuff out that would shock the pants off of most americans. Probably more surveillance, maybe assassinations, but whatever it was, it was bad.
b) Townsend is another Monica Goodling type. Doing her job, taking her orders, lying to the public, but never really involved in the deep stuff.
c) Frances Townsend belongs someplace else, not as CNN's top security expert.