NYTimes:

President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday.

. . . Aides have said Mr. Obama had originally hoped to select a C.I.A. head with extensive field experience, especially in combating terrorist networks. But his first choice for the job, John O. Brennan, had to withdraw his name amidst criticism over his role in the formation of the C.I.A’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Good for Obama for not letting the CIA's torture apologists pressure him into naming one of their own. The President-Elect makes it clear that torture will not be tolerated in his administration. As Panetta wrote in a March 2008 Washington Monthly article:

President-Elect Barack Obama today named four people to fill top spots in the Justice Department, which presumably will be headed by his nominee Eric Holder. They are:

• David Ogden for Deputy AG, the #2 spot. "Mr. Ogden, also a senior official in the Clinton Justice Department, has led the transition at the Justice Department since Mr. Obama’s election and has long been rumored as the front-runner for the #2 post."

• Dawn Johnsen to lead the Office of Legal Counsel..."A professor at Indiana University law school, she served on an acting basis as head of the office of legal counsel in 1997 and 1998 in the Clinton administration."

More...

Via Politico, Obama aides are now saying Richardson was pressed for information about the federal grand jury investigation into a possible "pay for play" situation and was not forthcoming. Others are putting the blame on Obama's transition team, saying the vetting of Richardson was inadequate.

There's also a second area of inquiry Republicans were likely to focus on during Richardson's confirmation hearings.

In addition, Senate Republicans told Politico ahead of Richardson's confirmation hearing that they were looking into questions about Richardson’s connection to a San Diego-based software company that came under investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

More...

Colorado senator Ken Salazar's replacement, Denver schools superintendant Michael Bennet, has been named by Gov. Ritter. But it sounds like Salazar, soon to be Interior Secretary, is having trouble handing over the reins to his successor:

Salazar said Sunday he would like to provide recommendations on filling two vacancies in U.S. District court in Denver as well as picking a new U.S. attorney and marshal before stepping down later this month.

Shouldn't those be Michael Bennet's choices? It's highly unlikely any of those appointments will be made before Salazar's confirmation hearings. Not only that:

Before leaving, Salazar said he'd also like to pass eight bills dealing mainly with wilderness and conservation issues. One would define bans on mining, timber harvesting and new roads and constructions in Rocky Mountain National Park. Another would establish the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area.

Someone needs to tell Sen. Salazar it's time to move on.

!!

Bob Geldorf and Jon Bon Jovi signing "I don't like Mondays."

After 10 days off from work, I don't feel going back just yet, but I have clients to visit in jail and then I have to play catch-up and tackle the mail, pleadings and client calls that came in during my abscence.

I'm tired of the holidays and glad they are ending, but I'd also like a few days to my myself before jumping back into the fray. Am I alone, or do any of you feel like I do?

A troubling trend that vexes those of us who believe the police should prevent or solve crimes, not manufacture them, is the detective sitting in a chat room posing as a 15 year old waiting to engage in salacious conversation with an adult. Courts have typically held that an adult who travels to meet the "15 year old" for a sexual encounter can be charged with attempted sexual assault of a minor, even though the defendant never chatted with a minor and no actual minor was ever at risk.

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently bucked that trend.

The court has ruled that two types of felony charges police had been using against sexual predators accused of luring underage victims via Internet "chat rooms" can't be leveled when the person at the other end of a "chat" is an undercover police officer, and not an actual child, The Indianapolis Star reported Sunday.

[more ...]

Ricardo Rachell deserves a break. A shotgun blast to the face left Rachell severely disfigured. Neighborhood kids called him "Scary Man." And then he served six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. His is the injustice that Houston's new DA talked about in this post.

Who knows if Rachell's facial deformities played a role in his conviction. But such taunts, rejection and deep humiliation often cause those with disfiguring injuries, burns and deformities to live in isolation and depression. Suicide rates are high.

Rachell will be undergoing a series of cosmetic surgeries, thanks to the kindness of Dr. Joseph Agris, who will perform the surgeries at no cost to Rachell. Dr. Agris deserves the public's appreciation for his generosity.

For those of you who like to think about ethics, the linked editorial asks whether face transplants to correct profound disfigurements that are not life-threatening should be considered cosmetic procedures. It's difficult to take issue with the editorial's concluding paragraph.

I miss the Sopranos. It's Sunday night, the new television season is starting, and all I have to look forward to is Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters.

New seasons of 24 and Damages start this week. I'm looking forward to those. And Life on Mars which comes back at the end of January. In the reality department, the Bachelor and Biggest Loser are back this week but both look pretty dismal.

Will we ever again get shows as good as the Sopranos, the Wire, Six Feet Under or Sex and the City? I don't think so.

What shows do you miss? Which are you watching this week? If you aren't watching, what are you doing instead? All media-related topics welcome here.

The Sooners bring the smack talk:

Oklahoma sophomore cornerback Dominique Franks said that [Florida QB Tim] Tebow would have been no better than the fourth-best quarterback in the Big 12 this season. [He also said] "[t]he three best receivers in the country came from the Big 12. The three best tight ends came from the Big 12. So we've faced some great offenses, and a lot of people don't understand that other conferences don't have what we face."

NYTimes:

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico confirmed in a statement released Sunday afternoon that he has withdrawn his name as the commerce secretary nominee, citing a pending “investigation of a company that has done businesswith New Mexico state government.”

What's the investigation about? From a 12/19 NYTimes article:

Harris County, Texas recently elected its first female district attorney. As a former judge, she seems to understand of the importance of fair trials to criminal defendants.

She said her first priority will be a new policy to prevent tragedies like the wrongful conviction of Ricardo Rachell. He spent five years in prison for a sexual assault of a child that he didn’t commit. Attorneys neglected to test DNA evidence that was available at the time of his trial.

"It's going to be an open-file policy, so the defense attorney will be aware of all the evidence," Lykos said. "That’s only fair. If there is scientific evidence there to be tested, we’ll see and be sure that it will be tested."

Bravo. Open discovery should be the rule, not the exception. It seems that Lykos will be a giant step up from her predecessor.

Roland Burris will be on ABC's This Week today. Harry Reid will be on Meet the Press. It should be interesting.

On Meet the Press, Harry Reid called Blagojevich a liar regarding the allegations from his camp that Reid opposed the appointment of Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones. There are tapes of course and they will come out. But Reid didn't flinch. For the record, preferring a different appointment on electability grounds seems a reasonable thing for Reid to have done. He is denying that he even did that.

This is an Open Thread.