We are not surprised, but we are unimpressed by Obama’s nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency. During his confirmation hearing Thursday, Leon Panetta appeared to make at least a couple inaccurate statements during his Thursday appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

When asked by Hatch, Panetta seemed to confirm an assertion by Senator Hatch (to quote a reporter paraphrasing the exchange) that “all major countries and intelligence agencies believed Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.” (We don’t have But this is plainly not true. We can start with the Downing Street Memo and demonstrated that the British were skeptical, but of course their political leadership was playing along. Even the Washington Post, in the lead-up to the war, published the news of leaks that were were internal arguments at CIA.

Charles Davis noted that Panetta (and Senator Evan Bayh) misrepresented a National Intelligence Estimate with regards to Iran.

This is just like the Clinton and Bush administration habits of mis-stating how and when UN weapons inspectors left Iraq, of ascribing motivation without providing evidence, and of ignoring past admissions by the government that debunk prior false statements.

If we were there, we would have liked to ask some follow-up questions and have these statements directly reconciled with the public record.

It turns out Panetta doesn’t like those either.

Whatever solace you choose to take from vague but perhaps seemingly more progressive statements by Panetta on torture tactics, we remain worried that he doesn’t know or has chosen to deny the actual facts of recent history. Even if given the benefit of the doubt, we believe clear language and contribution of additional hard fact to eliminate controversy is the way to go. A confirmation hearing would be the place to demonstrate this skill.