In an interesting report on Leon Panetta’s role in implementing President Bill Clinton’s extraordinary rendition program, Washington Times reporter Eli Lake brings to light a worrisome endorsement of Panetta for CIA Director:

Samuel R. Berger, who was deputy national security adviser in the first Clinton term and national security adviser in the second, also would not comment on Mr. Panetta’s role, apart from praising him as “someone with tremendous integrity who will have the confidence of the president” and who was “a consumer of intelligence at the highest level” when he served Mr. Clinton.

As one might recall, it would be entirely inappropriate to suggest that Berger himself is “someone with tremendous integrity.” This is the same man, after all, who was caught sneaking sensitive national security documents out of the National Archives. Berger’s endorsement of Panetta’s character hardly reassures those skeptical of Obama’s nominee.