Bill Burton, who served as press secretary for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and deputy White House press secretary for the first two years of his administration, had some kind words on CNN Tuesday for Leon Panetta: “He is a guy who has had a long and storied career in Washington and has really served his country well,” Burton said of Panetta, who served in the administration as CIA director (2009-11) and defense secretary (2011-13).

But as the Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper notes, Burton came to parry Panetta, not to praise him. He went on (with the brackets indicating slight corrections to Halper’s transcription):

“. . . And it is kind of sad that in its twilight he’s done such a dishonorable thing by--at a time--by going after the president that he served at a time of a lot of different instabilities around the world.
“I think if you ask the question, Do you think that Leon Panetta’s book helps or harms our interest, or [does it] help or harm the credibility of this administration as the president is conducting the job of foreign policy and keeping our nation safe? It’s hard to say yes.
“On the substance, this president has shown his leadership time and again. He’s made some tough calls. He’s advanced our [interests] in very real ways. He got Osama bin Laden. He got our troops out of Afghanistan. He has moved this country in the right direction. And to attack his leadership I think is small and petty.”

Before we get to the underlying dispute, let’s note a factual problem and a logical one with Burton’s statement. The last we heard, there were still U.S. troops in Afghanistan. And the way Burton frames that question, it’s almost impossible not to say yes. For the answer to be no, one would have to believe that Panetta’s book has no effect on either the administration’s credibility or “our interests.”

Also, note the ambiguity of that possessive pronoun. Is Burton referring to America’s national interests or to the administration’s (or the Democrats’) political interests? One suspects his aim may be to conflate the two.

What’s all the fuss about? “Typically frank, occasionally feisty and finally free of the constraints of clearing opinions with the White House,” the New York Timesreports, “Mr. Panetta is re-emerging with a blunt account of his time in the Obama administration. In a new memoir . . ., Mr. Panetta draws a largely respectful portrait of a president who made important progress and follows a ‘well-reasoned vision for the country’ but too often ‘avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.’ ” You might say Burton is reciprocating by offering a respectful nod followed by a frank, feisty, unconstrained denunciation.

In an interview with USA Today’s Susan Page, Panetta enumerates some of the ways in which “Obama erred”:

• By not pushing the Iraqi government harder to allow a residual U.S. force to remain when troops withdrew in 2011, a deal he says could have been negotiated with more effort. That “created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it’s out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed.” Islamic State also is known as ISIS and ISIL.
• By rejecting the advice of top aides--including Panetta and then-secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton--to begin arming Syrian rebels in 2012. If the U.S. had done so, “I do think we would be in a better position to kind of know whether or not there is some moderate element in the rebel forces that are confronting (Syrian President Bashar) Assad.”
• By warning Assad not to use chemical weapons against his own people, then failing to act when that “red line” was crossed in 2013. Before ordering airstrikes, Obama said he wanted to seek congressional authorization, which predictably didn’t happen.