As I've written before, I have a problem with my name. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with it. It's just that, unlike Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga, Barack Obama, or Newt Gingrich, mine is anything but distinctive, so much so that I keep running into namesakes.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved Leon Panetta to be the nation's next Pentagon chief. The panel unanimously approv...

Visiting the Central Intelligence Agency to swear in Leon E. Panetta as the agency's 19th director, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the Bush a...

WASHINGTON — CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoner...

Feinstein's call for the appointment of a CIA director who can be linked to the practices Obama has made clear must end demonstrates how out of touch she is on intelligence.

Cleaning out our stable of intelligence officials is a Herculean task. We are lucky to have men like Dennis Blair and Leon Panetta willing to sacrifice for the good of the nation.

I conducted a poll about what spies thought of the Panetta choice. The results: "Obama was wise" to choose someone out of the torture loop to run the CIA. But there's a problem.

Leon Panetta is a patriot, a veteran, and a consensus builder, and he will lead the CIA forthrightly and in full respect for the law and the Constitution. I frankly cannot think of a better choice.

It is perhaps not widely known that there has been a major change in the intelligence agencies' personnel since 9/11. Some 50% of intel community staffers have joined since 9/11.

Despite a nearly flawless transition period of astute, substantive and widely praised cabinet appointments, the Obama administration has unintentionally provoked its first controversy.

Placing an inexperienced person like Leon Panetta at CIA for his clean hands and "managerial expertise" will cost lives on the day of the next domestic terrorist attack.

The next time you find yourself getting pissed off at Obama, say these words out loud,"George Bush."

Having frozen Panetta out of the California governor's race in 1998 by not deciding whether to run until he had no chance of lining up financial backing, now would be a good time to stand aside and let him rise to the occasion.

To say Panetta is a Clinton retread is to ignore his actual background. He comes out of a tradition which is almost forgotten today, that of the liberal Republican.

Leon Panetta is an "unconventional" choice for CIA Director, a word Caroline Kennedy used to describe herself, but consider the corruption inherent in the more conventional options.

UPDATE 1/06: Marc Ambinder reports that President-elect Obama is confident that Leon Panetta won't face serious opposition, despite Democratic Senator...