It's hard to find any clear winners in the new interrogations set-up confirmed by the White House on Monday, but it's easy to spot the losers: Leon Panetta and Dennis Blair.

A former deep-cover CIA operative says the spy agency's congressional briefers routinely shade the truth or hide facts altogether from congressional overseers.

"They mumble, they dissemble, and there's a lot of  'on the one hand . . .'" said the retired official, who spent 25 years as a CIA operations officer but now writes blistering, unauthorized critiques of the spy agency using the pen name "Ishmael Jones."

It's not everyday that a new CIA chief of staff arrives at work having already been portrayed in a movie.

That comes later, if things go badly enough.

But Jeremy Bash is making his entrance as CIA boss Leon E. Panetta's new chief of staff with just that credit in his portfolio.