Anonymous Liberal counters:
The universe of people who have the experience and expertise necessary to competently oversee our enormous intelligence apparatus is very small. When looking for someone to run our intelligence agencies, a candidate’s competency from an operational standpoint is arguably more important that his policy views (remember that policy decisions are generally made by others, a point I’ll get to in a moment).
I understand this point. But any confusion about a clear break with Bush-Cheney destroys Obama’s potential for a fresh start with our allies and muddies the rule of law. It is going to be very difficult to take over what have been lawless and criminal policies without some taint. All the more reason to get someone at the top who is clearly not on the "dark side." Brennan does not do that. And this core, central mandate for Obama cannot be muddied. There must surely be someone capable of running the place who isn’t implicated in the defense of war crimes.
The Dish 