The current choice to lead the National Counter terrorism Center is high testimony to the President’s own 
remarkable combination of judgment with courage. The agency played the key role in gathering the intelligence needed in the killing of bin Laden. There is glaring contrast with the Bush and Clinton eras when the U.S. intelligence community was criticized for its failure to keep us out of the disaster of Iraq after the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks .
The Director of the Center shares a lot of history with President Obama.
Near the end of his term in 2008, George Bush appointed Michael Leiter. as Director, a choice Obama confirmed when he became President. Mr. Leiter had an unusual path into the intelligence business. He volunteered with the Fire Department in Englewood, N.J., where he grew up, and at one point thought of becoming a New York City police officer, friends said. But he went on to graduate from Columbia University (the president’s alma mater). Director Laeter was a former Navy pilot who flew EA6B Prowler jamming and attack planes over the Balkans and Iraq. Like Mr. Obama, Leiter, 42, graduated magna cum laude in 2000 and succeeded Obama as the 113th President of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Laeter clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer before starting work in counterterrorism.
In August 2008 Director Leiter very publicly took on a congressman, Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, who had criticized his agency for not preventing the shoe bomber. Miller says “I have to say, it left a bad taste in my mouth. He was very sensitive to criticism.” Both Republican, and Democratic lawmakers involved in intelligence and domestic security affairs count themselves as Leiter fans. They include Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California; Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine; Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California; and Representative Peter King, Republican of New York.
I see the same combination of judgment and courage leading the US in Libya. Ghaddafi will go and we will be much better off because of the way that exit will have been achieved.
from several web sources including Wikipedia and NY Times.