Leon Panetta Quotes
Whenever I had to make a difficult decision as a Congressman, I thoud think about the average citisen in my Congressional districr and how he would advise me if he knew everythign I knew about the issue.
When President Barak Obama asked his advice about whther or not to take the risk and approve the mssion to get bin Ladin when there is a great deal of risk to the mission, adn the intelligence was not even very sure that the target home they had identified in Pakistan really had bin Laden, Panetta told him this and suggested that he think of it the same way. The president foillowed that procedure and decided to approve the mission even though fully half of his leading advisors counseled agains the mission as being too risky with insufficient information.
Panetta, Leon. Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace. Penguin Press, 2014.
Then running for reelection as a state legislator.
The state senator had voted to override his own party governor's veto of a popular solid waste disposal project. The governor retaliated by withdrawing nominations for appointments in the senator's district.
See {642231} for has additional views on German leadership. Many serious Germans agreed, but the culture, concept of patriotism, and the laws did not encourage open discussion of negative things about the nation so the problem remained.
Leon Edward Panetta is an American politician who has served in several different public office positions, including the Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as a U.S. Representative from California. A Democrat, Panetta was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993, served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1994, and as President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997. He co-founded the Panetta Institute for Public Policy and served as a Distinguished Scholar to Chancellor Charles B. Reed of the California State University System and as a professor of public policy at Santa Clara University.
