RUSH: Interesting piece from Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard. It's about the possibility that Leon Panetta is the leaker of all these national security secrets about Obama and the Kill List and the Stuxnet computer virus, all of these things designed to make Obama look like John Wayne, Mr. Tough Guy. Here's what Hemingway says about it in the Weekly Standard.
"The recent congressional ire over the Obama administration's suspiciously convenient national security leaks reminded me of an unusual bit of political trivia: Defense Secretary -- and prior to that, CIA head -- Leon Panetta is the prime suspect in one of the most notorious political leaks of all time. Tevi Troy, a former Bush administration official and the author of Intellectuals and the American Presidency, wrote about this when Panetta was first tapped by the Obama administration for the CIA: After the 1968 campaign, Nixon hired Pat Moynihan -- who had served as assistant secretary of labor for policy in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations -- as his urban-affairs adviser and all-around White House intellectual. Moynihan was already a somewhat controversial figure, having authored a report called 'The Black Family: Then and Now,' which attributed the disproportionate poverty in the black community to rising illegitimacy."
By the way, that's Pat Moynihan in 1968, working for Nixon, wrote a report, got him in big trouble. Illegitimacy was his primary reason for black poverty, disproportionate black poverty.
"The liberal intelligentsia pilloried Moynihan for this conclusion, and he left the Department of Labor not long after his authorship of the report became public. ... The memo was leaked to the press, and on March 1, the New York Times ran an article headlined '"Benign Neglect" on Race Is Proposed by Moynihan.' The White House was swamped with criticism from civil-rights leaders and editorial pages, and Moynihan had to hold a press conference to defend himself. ... Although memos leak all the time, and the leakers are rarely identified, The New Republic's John Osborne reported in a March 1970 profile of Moynihan that Leon Panetta was a prime suspect in the leak.
"There was certainly some reason for the suspicion. In February, Panetta had resigned from HEW..." Health, Education, and Welfare department. That's the old HHS "... because he opposed the Nixon administration's approach to desegregation. Panetta later went to work for New York mayor John Lindsay, switched parties, and successfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1976. The leaker [of the Moynihan memo and report] has never been definitively identified."
Now, Tevi Troy, the former Bush administration guy, "suggested that senators use to the occasion of Panetta's CIA confirmation hearings to ascertain whether Panetta was the Moynihan memo leaker, as being able to keep a secret would seem to be an important qualification for that post. He also raised the issue again when Panetta was tapped to head up the Department of Defense. There is no particular reason to suspect that Panetta is behind the current spate of leaks, and outwardly Panetta seems to be a committed public servant. But given the seriousness of the national security issues involved, maybe we shouldn't rule out anyone."
So it's speculation. But Panetta has been thought of to be a high-level leaker in the past, and he is a loyal Democrat. I tell you, I'll never forget this. And I've always been suspicious of it. Panetta was chief of staff for Clinton. And I guess he was leaving as chief of staff, and he was heading back home to Carmel, California, which is a beautiful place. And he was gonna open the Panetta Institute. I met Panetta playing, by the way, out at the AT&T Pro-Am one year. I was being interviewed by Neil Cavuto, and as I left the trailer, Panetta walked in, said hello, yuk-yuk, and I went on down to the practice tee.
Anyway, when Panetta left, he gave the most glowing report and endorsement of Bill Clinton, as perhaps the country's greatest president ever. And it doesn't mean anything other than he's Mr. Loyal, which is fine. I have a great appreciation for loyalty. All I'm saying is, is that if people are gonna suspect that Panetta is the leaker here for the purposes of making Obama look good, it would make sense. He's a loyal soldier, CIA director for Obama, defense department for Obama. Somebody's leaking, and it's bad stuff. And it's all political. It's all designed to make Obama look like something he's not. Mr. Tough Guy, personally going over the Kill List. (Obama impression) "Yeah, I want to kill that terrorist today, and I'll kill that terrorist tomorrow. Then I'm gonna put the news out three days from now."