As Joe notes below, multiple news outlets are reporting that Obama has found his next CIA director: Leon Panetta, who once quit the Nixon Administration in protest over his Civil Rights policy, and later became a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton.
On cue, Marc Ambinder finds the clip, which answers the most immediate question. What are Panetta’s views on torture? This is what Panetta wrote in the Washington Monthly earlier this year:
Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground. We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.
More from Panetta on torture here. (via Paul Dirks/Atrios)
UPDATE: Two big Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller, both disapprove of the Panetta selection. They want someone with more intelligence experience.