Fergie's Tech Blog

SpyTalk: Who Will Run CIA?

Jeff Stein writes on SpyTalk:

With snow already falling in Afghanistan, Barack Obama's not likely to wait long to pick America's next top spy.

For my two cents, it's as hard to imagine the president-elect keeping Mike Hayden at the CIA as it is picking Anthony Lake for the job, no matter how much we're hearing about Obama naming Republicans like Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar to top national security posts.

Notwithstanding Hayden's restoration of calm professionalism at the agency after years of turmoil, he was a loyal soldier in the Bush administration's secret warrantless wiretapping program, as director of the NSA before moving to the CIA.

That will never sit well with most Democrats, at least some of whom will think of Hayden, fairly or not, as a potential fifth columnist.

Obama will want somebody he knows and trusts running herd on the agency's spies and analysts.

posted by Fergie @ 11/06/2008 02:00:00 PM