From the NY Times:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...
President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday.
The Times articles notes how people like Stansfield Turner and John Deutch were not given much support by the CIA community as they were outsiders.
It would seem to me that Obama wants someone to go in there and clean house.
The article states:
But his selection points up the difficulty Mr. Obama had in finding a C.I.A. director with no connection to controversial counterterrorism programs of the Bush era.
This seems to be the reason for an outside the CIA pick like Panetta. Obama's original choice was John Brennan, but his involvement with the agency's detention and interrogation programs after Sept. 11th made that choice untenable.
A bit of bio from the article:
Mr. Panetta, a native of Monterey, Calif., served eight terms in the House representing his home region before becoming the chief budget adviser to President Bill Clinton in 1993. He then served as Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff from July 1994 to January 1997.
Overall, it seems like a good choice. I remember Panetta as bringing some order to the Clinton White House as his Chief of Staff...and the CIA definitely needs a house cleaning.