JOHN BRENNAN IS JUST AS BAD A CHOICE FOR POLITICS AS CHUCK HAGEL

Diana West's written about another bad choice Obama's made for a political position, that being John Brennan, who's been picked as a candidate for managing the CIA:

More than any other Obama administration official, Brennan has openly cultivated groups in this country that I describe, with good reason, as being of the jihadist persuasion. Simultaneously, Brennan misinforms or dissembles about the nature of jihad itself. How can such a man helm America’s premier intelligence institution, which, at least ostensibly, is engaged in thwarting jihad?

Consider Brennan’s interactions with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Despite evidence presented (and later upheld) in federal court during the landmark 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, which established ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood organization and financial supporter of the terrorist organization Hamas (a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood), Brennan has continued to meet with ISNA officials and participate in ISNA events.

At ISNA’s annual conference in 2009, for example, Brennan delivered the keynote address. In 2010, Brennan spoke at a “town hall” with ISNA president Ingrid Mattson. As former FBI agent John Guandolo wrote recently in a paper he shared with me, Brennan continues to grant ISNA leaders access to senior government officials and support their appointments to key intelligence positions. (Guandolo and I are among the 19 co-authors of “Shariah: The Threat to America.”)

“The current president of ISNA, Imam Mohamed Magid, sits on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which reports directly to (Homeland) Secretary (Janet) Napolitano,” Guandolo writes. “With the support of John Brennan, Imam Magid works with the National Security Council, which has publicly applauded this Hamas supporter.”

Guandolo was referring to praise heaped on Magid in 2011 by then-deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough. McDonough is now Obama’s chief of staff.

If this all sounds surreal, welcome to our world. Here, the leader of a group that the U.S. government has designated a conspirator to promote and finance Islamic terrorism is tapped to advise the same government on how to defuse Islamic terrorism – or, rather, what the government prefers to call “extremism.”

Brennan most definitely would be a very poor choice for running an agency that's needed for dealing with the menace of Islamofascism. The Republicans have warned that they'll try to block Brennan's appointment, and I hope they can. They've already blocked the appointment of Hagel for defense secretary. Brennan, like Hagel, is a bad choice for a prominent position, and it'd be best that the GOP oppose his nomination as well.