Former CIA chief and secretary of defense Leon Panetta was wrong to release a memoir critical of President Barack Obama while his ex-boss is still in the White House, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan says.
Asked if he believes Panetta should have waited until Obama's second term ended before publishing
"Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace," Buchanan told "The Steve Malzberg Show" Tuesday on
Newsmax TV:
"Personally I do, I've been in three White Houses and I wrote one critical book of some of the Nixon policies — after he left office."
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"You ought to be honest in your memoirs … But at the same time, if you have been the confidante of the president, [and] he's put his trust in you and enabled you to sit and listen to his deepest thoughts and ruminations, I don't think you do that until the administration is over," Buchanan said.
"At least that's my personal rule. Now, I like Leon Panetta and I admire him as a public servant, but he should have waited until Barack Obama had left office."
In the book written with Jim Newton, Panetta — CIA director from 2009 to 2011 and Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013 — says Obama has a "frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause."
Too frequently, Obama "relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader," Panetta writes.
Buchanan — the former senior adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford — also weighed in on the growing crisis surrounding the Ebola virus in the United States.
A man who flew to the U.S. from Liberia — the "ground zero" of Ebola — is now in critical condition at a Dallas hospital.
Buchanan said flights to and from Liberia should be halted, something the government has so far refused to do.
"If they are coming directly from Liberia still, it is mindlessness on the part of the people allowing that," he said.
"That is an epicenter right now of a very serious pandemic which is growing pretty rapidly.
"It's killed thousands of people as I understand it, and we're not discriminating against people, we're discriminating against the disease by saying we don't want to import it into the United States."
Buchanan said he disagreed with Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said a ban would harm the economies of countries where flights were stopped.
"The CDC director is not responsible for the economy of West Africa. They're responsible for the medical health, well-being and safety of the American people and we ought to do nothing which imperils that," Buchanan said.
"When I was a kid, one of nine kids ... when we got chicken pox, one of us, or scarlet fever or mumps or measles, they came by the house door and pinned something on the door which said this house is under quarantine.
"The reason wasn't that they disliked us or disliked big families. They were scared to death that this would spread and kill some kids … That is common sense. What has happened to the common sense of the leaders of this country when this kind of nonsense is being perpetuated?"
Buchanan is author of the book,
"The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority," published by Crown Forum.
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