Astute readers will recall that the original CIA chief was to be John Brennan, and then there were a variety of explanations about why Brennan didn't get the nod even as Leon Panetta, with no prior intelligence experience, did get the nod.

Explanations like ...

A "break with the past" and use of torture

thehttp://blog.cleveland.com/letters/20 ... ak_wi.html
or

The possibility that his past statements on use of torture as an interrogation technique might scuttle his chances of Senate confirmation as CIA chief ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00308.html

The president-elect's decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation. The firm Brennan heads, the Analysis Corp., and its corporate parent have earned millions of dollars over the past decade assisting several federal agencies and private firms on counterterrorism. Those oil and telecommunications firms have worked in countries beset by violence, including Mozambique, Liberia, Colombia and Pakistan -- all of which have been topics of intense policy debate in Washington. The parent corporation, London-based Global Strategies, has been a target of critical news accounts about harsh actions by its hired soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama has criticized the actions of similar firms, such as Blackwater Worldwide, and co-sponsored legislation to ensure that such firms are subject to U.S. laws even when operating overseas. Brennan also has attracted personal criticism from human rights experts for defending the CIA's long-standing practice of forced renditions, or transfers, of terrorism suspects for interrogations, a position that forced the withdrawal in late November of his candidacy to head the CIA.
But after advising Obama on intelligence throughout the campaign, Brennan gets a "nod" that needs no Senate confirmation, as the White House advisor on counter-terrorism

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

Now ... remember how there were reports back in the spring of 2008 or even earlier that two "contract employees" of the State Department got fired because they "accidentally" got into the passport files of Obama while trying to "really" obtain other information that was legitimate to their work? And how the media portrayed it as maybe "dirty tricks" of some kind, or a violation of Obama's privacy? Other reports were that all three front-runners (Obama, Clinton and McCain) had their files invaded by these "curious" outside contractors working under security clearances. I don't recall any of those articles mentioning which contractor was involved, which employed the two "contract workers" who got fired. Leave it to Newsmax to get more details of the story, by bird-dogging the report of the internal investigation.

http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brenna ... 70430.html

[quote]Obama's Intelligence Adviser Involved in Security Breach
Monday, January 12, 2009 1:46 PM

[size=150]Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July. The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.

During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.

Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and [b]that the contractor accessed the file in order to “cauterizeâ€