It's Panetta to Hegal on the Alley-Opp... Yes!! And the crowd goes crazy! ...that will definitely be Chuck's first entry on his Sec Def career highlight reel!
After a quick read of the NBC News story of Secretary Defense Hagel's order to review the planned Playstation medal, my strong impression was that this is a gift from Panetta to his successor.
There should be some recognition that the Distinguished Warfare Medal guys are the epitome of Patton's dictum to make the other poor bastard die for his country, but the General would be spinning in his grave over the concept of honoring even the deadliest of REMFs over those who have shed blood doing it the old-fashioned way, and are still doing so today.
Panetta is still paying lip service to it (he got Bin Laden, he won't hurt his legacy with this.) He gets to conduct some serious education of the American public about the changing nature of our conduct of war, while at the same time giving Hagel an enormously popular first major decision.
I think Panetta planned this as the ultimate team player.