The blog Calitics pushes back on my earlier contention that the appointment of Leon Panetta as CIA director is a blow to reform in California. (George Skelton made the same argument in his Los Angeles Times column today).  Progressives don't like his centrist -- or Broderist (that's an adjective that uses the Washington Post centrist columnist David Broder's name) -- approach to reform, though they like Panetta. Some Democrats in California still hold it against Panetta that he began his work in politics four decades ago as a Republican.

Unintentionally, Barack Obama may have delivered a blow to political reform in California. Various news reports say former Congressman and Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta is Obama's pick for CIA director. In California, Panetta has been a leading voice for budget and political reform, most recently as the leader of the reform coalition California Forward. 2009 has been shaping up as a year for reform, as various groups try to capitalize on the state's budget crisis and political stalemates to push big ideas (including the possibility of a constitutional convention). For those folks, losing Panetta is not good news. He can't be easily replaced. 

"A little before noon on February 17, 2003, Abu Omar was headed to his mosque....'Suddenly I was lifted in the air,' he recalled. He was dragged into a white van and beaten, he said...And so began Abu Omar's descent into one of the 21st century's nastier circles of hell..."

The story of the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar from the streets of Milan and the ongoing Italian criminal proceedings against the 26 alleged CIA employees involved has opened a window into the inner workings of the Bush administration's global war on terror. Published today in Mother Jones, the article is by New America Schwartz Senior Fellow and CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen, with assistance from New America program associate Katherine Tiedemann.

Click here for the New America Foundation report, "Extraordinary Renditions: A Look at the Data"