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Choosing not to back her California colleague’s Panetta pique, Senator Barbara Boxer told the SF Chronicle that President-Elect Obama "took the right approach" in choosing an outsider to run the CIA.

"He’s a wonderful leader, manager, reformer … with a lot of skills," Boxer said. "And I guess there’re two things you could look for – an outsider like Leon who could come in and reform the agency and build up the trust … and make it more amenable to working with the other agencies. The other is to just take an expert in intelligence and put them in charge – and that’s more a hands-on person, an ‘into the weeds’ person."

Obama, she said, "took the right approach … you pick someone like Leon," with insider experts like Blair working alongside him and others with experience assisting him.

As the current and continuing chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Boxer also made the point that nobody called her ahead of time about Obama’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency:

Boxer acknowledged that for any president, "it’s good to work with the chairman" of key committees on important appointments – though she noted Obama "didn’t confer with me on the (Environmental Protection Agency) appointment. I talked to him about it, and I would have loved to have known."

"I think the more communication with the Senate, the better … (it’s) a better way to go," she said. "We’re all going to be on his team."

Boxer predicted the controversy will soon be over – she said she’s confident Panetta will be confirmed.

Then, she said, the whole issue will be merely "water under the bridge."

Does that seem to anyone else like a quite pointedly delivered, "Get over it" from Barbara to Dianne in her own hometown paper?