Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta helped touch off an avalanche of erroneous expectations Thursday when he testified that there was a “strong likelihood” that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down by the end of the day.
Within minutes, senior aides to Panetta sought to tamp down the impact, saying he was merely referring to media reports. But by then, the comments had ricocheted around the Internet, underscoring U.S. confusion about events unfolding in Egypt, as well as the perils of publicly weighing in on such developments while serving as director of CIA.
