Leon E Panetta

Former White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta has launched a brief, intensive exploration of his chances of winning the California governorship, his wife, Sylvia, confirmed this weekend. Panetta, who represented the Monterey-area congressional district before joining the Clinton administration as budget director in 1993, returned to his home state last January. His ambitions regarding the governorship were placed on hold until last week, when U.S. Sen.

A new reform group is proposing several fixes to Sacramento's red-ink budget writing. And one fix doesn't require a vote of the people or even legislators. It requires only intellectually honest and civil discourse. "Just a personal observation," says former Washington insider Leon Panetta, co-chairman of the group called California Forward. "Part of the problem across the street [at the Capitol] is that they don't spend a lot of time talking to each other."

After promising during the campaign to restore order and accountability to the nation's spy agencies, President-elect Barack Obama has been beset by uncharacteristic blunders in his effort to assemble an intelligence team. His selection of Leon E. Panetta as CIA director marked the first time Obama faced immediate opposition from his own party over a Cabinet nomination.

Thanks a bunch, Mr. President-elect. You've just taken away California's best hope for government and political reform -- reform necessary to save this state. It's understandable because Leon Panetta would excel in practically any job he undertook -- whether reforming Sacramento or retooling the CIA. Bright, personable and pragmatic. Articulate and dedicated. Experienced and knowledgeable in government -- if not as a spy, at least in managing people.

Leon E. Panetta, President Obama's pick to lead the CIA, testified Thursday that he believes the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding is torture, and he vowed to end an era in which the CIA's conduct drew controversy in the United States and condemnation around the world. "I believe that waterboarding is torture and it's wrong," Panetta said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

CIA Director Leon Panetta told a federal judge Monday that releasing documents about the agency's terrorism interrogations would harm national security. Panetta sent an affidavit to New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, arguing that release of agency cables describing tough interrogation methods used on Al Qaeda suspects would tell the enemy too much. The CIA director filed the papers in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee triggered a political mystery this week when they leaked a letter disclosing that CIA Director Leon E. Panetta -- four months after taking office -- last month learned his agency had misled Congress about a special project. Panetta canceled the program, and he scheduled closed-door meetings with the House and Senate intelligence panels the next day to brief them. But what was the program? Early speculation focused on waterboarding.

CIA director: An article in Wednesday's Section A about the selection of Leon E. Panetta as CIA director described the job as a Cabinet position. A CIA director must be confirmed by the Senate, but it is not a Cabinet post.

Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday appointed Leon Panetta, the former White House budget director and chief of staff under President Clinton, to lead a bipartisan panel that will advise the governor and lawmakers on reshaping California's shaky fiscal structure. Panetta said he hoped to assemble a team of experts to make recommendations before the governor's next State of the State speech, scheduled for January.

Confronted with a cloud over UC Irvine's cancer research programs, Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone has ordered his senior staff to review the activities of a UCI scientist implicated in the use of unauthorized cancer treatments, officials said Friday. Cicerone's concerns include questions raised over the conduct of former UCI cancer specialist John C. Hiserodt and contained in a three-page report filed Dec. 8 by Dr. Yutaka Kikkawa, chair of pathology at UCI Medical Center.