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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder - Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. More

Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal. He previously served as the politics editor, and is now a contributing editor, for The Atlantic, where he curated the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributed to the magazine. He was also a chief political consultant to CBS News. Earlier, at NJ's Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of "Hotline On Call," a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC's "The Note." Born in New York City, raised in Central Florida, Ambinder is a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.

Did Panetta Threaten To Resign?

By Marc Ambinder
Aug 24 2009, 3:22 PM ET Comment

ABC News, citing senior administration officials, says "yes." The CIA and other officials say the story is a "lie."  Who's right?  For the sake of Panetta's main audience -- CIA employees -- his threat to resign over a matter of principle to him is probably a good thing, if it happened at all, so I don't think CIA quite minds the story as much as one might think.  The ABC story includes references to discontent at the highest levels of the administration with the president's national security team, and yet the evidence for that is nil: indeed, John Brennan, the president's top counterterrorism adviser and a man whose imminent resignation is often rumored, just saw his portfolio expand to include oversight of a new interrogation program.  And whatever's wrong at CIA has little to do with Panetta and more to do with the legacy of institutional and personnel decisions made by the former administration.


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Marc Ambinder
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