In a likely end to his public career, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is retiring after the Senate confirmed his successor, Chuck Hagel, on Tuesday.
Panetta's previous experience at the Office of Management and Budget led some to hope that he would ably lead the Pentagon into a new world of limited resources. But he turned out to be a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan's first defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger
Known as "Cap the Knife" from when he headed OMB, Weinberger turned into "Cap the Shovel," promoting a large-scale military buildup even as deficits rose dramatically.